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The Dauphin is crowned in Rheims Cathedral. — Page 56 



THE STORY OF 

Joan of/\rc 

The Maid of Orleans 

By 

Andrew 
IAN5 




NEW YORK 

mglougmun brothers 



I tSKrtHY of COMPRESS 






sf ^ C 1*0 ^ 



[ 



COPY B. "^ 




Copyright, 1906, by 
McLouGHLiN Bros., New York. 




(Contents 



CHAPTER 

I. The Childhood of Joan of Arc. 

II. How THE Voices came to the Maid 

III. How the Maid obeyed the Voices 

IV. How Joan heard News Strangely 
V. How THE Maid saw the Dauphin 

VI. How the Maid rode to Orleans 

VII. How THE Maid saved Orleans . 

VIII. How THE Maid took the Town of Jargeau 

IX. How Joan defeated the English in Fair 
Field ...... 

X. How Joan led the Dauphin to be Crowned 

XI. How the Maid was betrayed at Paris 

XII. How the Maid took certain Towns . 

XIII. How THE Voices prophesied Evil 

XIV. How THE Maid was Taken 
XV. The Captivity of the Maid 

XVI. The Trial of the Maid . . . . 

XVII. How the Priests betrayed the Maid 

XVIII. The End of the Maid .... 

XIX, The Second Trial of the Maid 



Page 

5 

13 
16 
20 
26 
31 
35 
42 

46 
54 
59 
63 
66 
69 
75 
81 
88 
92 
95 



To 

ANGELA COTTRELL-DORMER 

Dear Angela, 

May I dedicate this little book to you, 
who are already a friend of the Maid ? 

As you grow up you will meet certain wise 
people who will tell you that there was never any 
such person as Joan of Arc, or that, if she ever 
lived, she was mad, or an impostor. If you ask 
them how they know that, they will probably reply 
that Science is the source of their information. You 
can then answer that you prefer to begin with 
History, and ask these wise people if they have 
read even so much as Monsieur Quicherat's five 
volumes containing the Trial of Joan, and the 
evidence of her friends and enemies who knew her 
in her lifetime ? As the books are in Latin and Old 
French, the people who speak about Joan disre- 
spectfully have not read them, and do not know 
what they are are talking about. 

*'They say: Whai say ihey P Let them say /^^ 

Affectionately yours, 

A. LANG, 




CHAPTER I 

THE CHILDHOOD OF JOAN OF ARC 

JOAN OF ARC was perhaps the most wonder- 
ful person who ever lived in the world. The 
story of her life is so strange that we could 
scarcely believe it to be true, if all that happened 
to her had not been told by people in a court of 
law, and written down by her deadly enemies, 
while she was still alive. She was burned to death 
when she was only nineteen : she was not seven- 
teen when she first led the armies of France to 
victory, and delivered her country from the 
English. 

Joan was the daughter of a poor man, in a 
little country village. She had never learned to 
read, or write, or mount a horse. Yet she was 
so wise that many learned men could not puzzle 
her by questions : she was one of the best riders 
in France; one of the most skilled in aiming 
cannons, and so great a general that she defeated 
the English again and again, and her army was 
never beaten till her king deserted her. She 
was so brave that severe wounds could not stop 
her from leading on her soldiers, and so tender- 



6 JOAN OF ARC 

hearted that she would comfort the wounded 
English on the field of battle, and protect them 
from cruelty. She was so good that her enemies 
could not find one true story to tell against her 
in the least thing ; and she was so modest that 
in the height of her glory she was wishing to be 
at home in her father's cottage, sewing or spin- 
ning beside her mother. 

Joan, who was born at Domremy, in the east 
of France, on January 6, 1412, lived in a very 
unhappy time. For nearly a hundred years the 
kings of England had been trying to make 
themselves kings of France, just as they had 
been trying to make themselves kings of Scot- 
land. Perhaps they might have succeeded, if 
they had confined themselves to one conquest at 
a time. But they left Scotland alone while they 
were attacking France, and then Scotland sent 
armies to help the French, as at other times the 
French sent armies to help Scotland. 

Eight years before Joan was born a sad thing 
happened to her country. Henry V. of England 
had married the Princess Katherine of France, 
and the French, or some of them, tired of being 
beaten in war, consented to let the child of 
Henry and the Princess Katherine be their King, 
instead of the son of their old King. The old 
King's son was called " the Dauphin "; that was 
the title of the eldest son of the French kings. 
This Dauphin was named Charles. His friends 
went on fighting the English for his sake, but 



HER CHILDHOOD 7 

he was not crowned King. The coronations of 
French Kings were always done in the Cathedral 
at Rheims, where they were anointed with sacred 
oil. The oil was kept in a very old flask, which 
was said to have been brought from heaven, to a 
Saint, by an Angel. No eldest son of the King 
was thought really King of France, after his 
father's death, till he had been anointed with this 
heavenly oil at Rheims by the Ai'chbishop. It 
is important to remember this ; you will see the 
reason afterwards. Now, Rheims was in the 
power of the English, so the Dauphin, Charles, 
could not go there and be made King in earnest. 
The English said that he was not the son of his 
father, the late King, which made him very un- 
happy. We shall hear how Joan comforted him 
and made him King for good and all. What 
Scots and Frenchman could not do, she did. 

In the meantime the French were divided into 
two parties. Some sided with the Dauphin, 
Prince Charles; more, and especially all the 
people of Burgundy, and the Duke of Burgundy, 
a great and rich country, were on the side of the 
English. So they fought very cruelly, for the 
land was full of companies of ill-paid soldiers, 
who plundered the poor, so that towns fell into 
decay, many fields were empty of sheep and 
cows, and the roads became covered with grass. 
In the villages a boy used to watch all day, from 
the spire of the church, to see whether any 
soldiers were riding up. If they came, the cattle 



8 JOAN OF ARC 

were driven into the woods, and men, women, 
and children ran to hide themselves, carrying 
such things away as they could. The soldiers of 
all sorts robbed equally, for they had often no 
regular pay, and the Scots were not behindhand 
in helping themselves wherever they went. 
Even gentlemen and knights became chiefs of 
troops of robbers, so that, whoever won in the 
wars, the country people were always being 
plundered. 

In the middle of these miseries Joan was bom, 
in a village where almost everybody was on the 
side of the Dauphin : the right side. In the 
village nearest to hers, Maxey, the people took 
the English side, and the boys of the two places 
had pitched battles with sticks and stones. It is 
true that they would have found some other reason 
for fighting, even if the English had not been in 
France. Joan used to see her brothers, Peter 
and John, come home from these battles with 
their noses bleeding, and with black eyes, but 
she did not take part herself in these wars. 

Her village was near a strong-walled town 
called Vaucouleurs, which was on the side of the 
Dauphin. When Joan was a little girl she did 
not see very much of the cruelty of the soldiers ; 
the village was only visited once or twice by 
enemies. But she heard of what was going on 
in the rest of France : ** there was great pity in 
France," she said. She did, once or twice, see 
some of the " pity." There was a man caUed 



HER CHILDHOOD 




The oak called the Fairy Tree —Page 10 



HER CHILDHOOD 9 

Henry d'Orly, living in a castle named Doulevant, 
who, like many other gentlemen in these days, 
was a captain of robbers. 

One day several spearmen of his rode into 
Domremy, Joan's village, and seized Joan's 
father's cows, with all the other cows that they 
could find, just as the Scotts, Elliots, and Arm- 
strongs used to ride across the Border and drive 
the cattle of the English farmers. But a lady 
lived in a strong castle near Domremy, and when 
she heard how the village people had been 
plundered she sent the news to a gentleman in 
the neighborhood, who gathered his spearmen 
and rode after the robbers. The thieves, of 
course, could not ride faster than the stolen 
cows could trot ; they pricked the poor beasts 
with their spears, and made them lumber along, 
but a cow is slow at best. The pursuers 
galloped and came on the cattle in a little town, 
while the thieves were drinking in the wine 
shops. When they heard the horses of the pur- 
suers gallop down the street, they mounted their 
horses and spurred for their lives ; but now 
came their master, Henry d'Orly, with more 
spearmen, who followed after the cattle and the 
gentlemen who were driving them home. They 
turned and charged Henry d'Orly, and cleared 
the road, and the cows came home to Domremy, 
all safe. 

Another time all the people in Domremy had 
to fly from home, and go to a town called Neui- 



10 JOAN OF ARC 

chateau, where they were safe behind strong 
walls. They only stayed there for a few days, 
but, later, the English said that Joan had been 
a servant in an inn at this town, and had learned 
to ride there, which was quite untrue. 

There were beautiful woods near the village, 
and in one oak wood an oak called the Fairy Tree. 
There was a story that a beautiful fairy used to 
meet her lover at that tree, just as, under the 
Eildon Hill, the Queen of Fairyland met Thomas 
the Rhymer. The children used to take cakes, 
and make feasts, and hang garlands of flowers 
on the boughs of that oak ; but Joan did not 
care much about fairies, and preferred to lay her 
wild flowers beneath the statues of Saints in the 
village Church, especially St. Catherine and St. 
Margaret. Of course, all this was long before 
the Reformation, in which the Protestants broke 
the images of Saints in the churches, and 
smashed their pictures on the glass windows 
with stones, and destroyed a beautiful statue of 
Joan on the bridge of Orleans. 

These things were done more than a hundred 
years after Joan was dead. 

Though Joan could run faster than the other 
girls and boys, and beat them when they ran 
races, she liked to be quiet. Nobody could sew 
and spin better than she did, and she was very 
fond of praying alone in church. She would 
even go away from the other children into lonely 
places, and implore God to have pity on France, 



HER CHILDHOOD 




Joan lays her wild flowers beneath the Statue 
of St. Catherine. — Page 10 



HER CHILDHOOD II 

The services in churcli, the singing and music, 
made her very happy, and when she heard the 
" church bells across the fields, she would say her 
prayer. She was very kind, and would give up 
her bed to any poor traveller whom her father 
took in for a night, and would sleep beside the 
hearth. She took care of the sick, and, if ever 
she had any money, she would spend it on 
Masses to be said in honor of God, and for the 
sake of men's souls. 

So Joan lived till she was thirteen. She was 
a strong, handsome girl, beautifully made, with 
black hair. We do not know the color of her 
eyes, probably brown or dark gray. A young 
knight wrote to his mother, when he first saw 
Joan, that she was " a creature all divine.'* Joan 
never sat to a painter for her portrait, though 
once she saw a kind of fancy picture of herself 
in the hands of a Scottish archer. 

Yoimg men do not say so much about a girl 
who is not beautiful, and, indeed, armies do not 
rush together to follow a maiden with no good 
looks. But though Joan, when she came to 
to command armies, liked to be well dressed, and 
to have fine armor, that was partly because she 
was a natural, healthy girl, and partly because 
she was a kind of banner for men to follow into 
fight, and banners ought to be splendid. 

She took no thought of her own beauty, and 
the yoimg knights and squires who fought, later, 
under her flag, said that they looked on her as 



12 



JOAN OF ARC 



a sacred thing, and never dreamed of making 
love to her. She let it be known that she would 
never marry any one, while the English were 
still in France. She was not a nun, and had not 
made a vow never to marry at all, but while her 
country was in danger she never thought of 
marriage ; she had other things to do. 




CHAPTER II 

HOW THE VOICES CAME TO THE MAID 

When Joan was about thirteen a very wonderful 
thing happened to her. One day she and 
the other girls and boys were running a race 
for a crown of flowers. Joan was easily the 
winner, and, as she was running, a child who 
was looking on cried, " Joan, I see you flying 
along without touching the ground." After the 
race Joan had a curious feeling as if she did not 
know where she was, and then heard a young 
man's voice near her, bidding her to go home, 
for her mother needed her. She did not know 
who spoke ; she thought it might be her brother, 
or one of her neighbors, so she ran home. She 
found that her mother had not sent for her, and 
she was going back to her friends, when a 
bright light like a shining cloud appeared to her, 
and a Voice told her to go and save France from 
the English. Till that hour she had been sorry 
for the sorrows in France, but as she was only 
a little girl, she had never thought that she 
could lead an army against the English. 

This is the first account that people heard of 
the coming of the mysterious Voices to Jeanne . 
it was written down about four years after the 
Voices first came, and six weeks after Joan'a 

13 



14 JOAN OF ARC 

first great defeat of the English (in May 1429). 
Two years later, after Joan was a prisoner of the 
English, the French priests and lawyers who 
took the English side asked her thousands of 
questions about everything that she had done in 
her life, and the answers were written down in 
a book, word for word. They asked her about 
these wonderful Voices. There were things that 
she refused to tell these priests and lawyers, 
but she did say this : 

"When I was about thirteen there came to 
me a Voice from God, teaching me how I was to 
behave and what I was to do. And the first 
time that Voice came, I was afraid. I was 
standing about the middle of the day, in summer, 
in my father's garden. The Voice came from 
the right hand, from where the church stands, 
and when it came I usually saw a great light on 
the side from which it spoke. The Voice told 
me to be a good girl and go to church, and go 
to save France. I said that I was only a poor 
girl, who could not ride or lead the soldiers in 
the wars," but the Voice kept on for years, tell- 
ing her that she must go. 

She not only heard Voices, but she saw shin- 
ing figures of the Saints in heaven. She never 
would tell the lawyers much about how the 
Saints appeared to her, but said, "I saw them 
as clearly as I see you, and I used to cry when 
they went away. And I wished that they would 
take me with them where they went." 



HOW THE VOICES CAME 15 

These Saints were St. Margaret, St. Catherine, 
and the Archangel St. Michael. When Joan 
spoke to her own friends about what she saw 
and heard, they say that " she seemed marvel- 
lously happy, lifting her eyes to heaven." This 
is all that we know about these wonderful 
things which kept Joan company from the time 
when she was thirteen to the day of her death, 
when she was nineteen, advising her about what 
she was to do for the saving of France. If the 
Voices had not spoken to her often, she would 
never have gone to the wars, and for some years 
she told nobody about the Voices, and stayed at 
home in her village. Even when she went to the 
wars, her friends could not persuade her to say 
more than I have told you about these strange 
things. She said that she had a "council" 
which advised her in everything. If there was 
much noise in a room where she might be, she 
could not hear the Voices distinctly. Only one 
person said that he saw angels* faces in her 
company; none of her friends who knew her 
best saw or heard anything extraordinary. She 
very much disliked to speak about the Saints 
and Voices. 



CHAPTER III 

HOW THE MAID OBEYED THE VOICES 

Time went on, and tlie Dauphin, the rightful 
Prince of France, was more and more unfortu- 
nate. It is true that Henry V., the King of 
England, died. He was a great soldier, and his 
son was only a baby, but the war was carried on 
by the brother of the late King, the Duke of 
Bedford; by the Earl of Salisbury; by the 
famous Talbot; by Sir John Fastolf, and many 
other English generals. The Scots won a great 
victory over the English at Bauge bridge, where 
the Duke of Clarence, the brother of Henry V., 
was killed. But the French and Scots were 
beaten at Verneuil, where most of the Scots fell 
fighting bravely. However, a new army came 
from Scotland, under Stewart of Darnley, and 
still the war went on. 

By that time the Dauphin only held France 
south of the great river Loire. The strongest 
place which was true to the Dauphin was the 
town of Orleans. If the English could once take 
that city, and fill it with provisions, and guns, 
and other weapons, the French could not hope 
to win it back again, and the English would 
overrun the whole of the centre and south of 

16 



HOW JOAN OBEYED THE VOICES 




Joan hears the Voice. — Page 14 



HOW JOAN OBEYED THE VOICES 17 

France, and drive the Dauphin out of his own 
country. He was very poor and very unhappy. 
He could scarcely pay his bootmaker, and as he 
was not a good fighting man, he lived here and 
there idly, at towns south of Orleans, such as 
Blois and Poitiers, He used to wonder whether 
he had not better give up the war, and go to 
Spain or Scotland. Another thing made him 
miserable. He did not know for certain whether 
he had really the right to be a King or not, as 
many people said that he was not truly the son 
of the last King of France. 

In his distress he prayed, privately and in 
silence, that he might know whether or not he 
was the rightful prince, and ought to be crowned 
and anointed as King. But he told nobody 
about this, and lived as he best could, wandering 
from one town to another. Then he heard that 
his great city of Orleans was being besieged by 
the English, in the autumn of the year 1428. 
Orleans lies on the right bank of the river Loire, 
which here is deep, broad, and swift, with 
several islands in the middle of the current. 
The bridge was fortified, on the farther side, by 
two strong towers, called Les Tourelles, but the 
English took this fortification, and so the people 
of Orleans could not cross the river by the 
bridge, and they broke down an arch, that the 
English might not cross to them. 

One day the English general came to this fort, 
at the time when the soldiers of both sides dined, 



18 JOAN OF ARC 

to look out of a narrow window, and watch what 
was going on in the besieged town. Now it 
happened that a cannon lay, ready loaded, in a 
niche of the gate-tower of Orleans that looked 
straight along the bridge to the Tourelles. The 
English general, the Earl of Salisbury, was 
peeping through the narrow window, thinking 
himself quite safe, as the French soldiers in Or- 
leans had gone to dinner. But a small French 
boy went into the gate-tower of Orleans, and 
seeing a cannon ready loaded, he thought it 
would be amusing to set a light to the touch-hole. 
So he got a linstock, as it was called, lighted it, 
put it to the touch-hole, and fired off the cannon. 
The bullet went straight into the narrow window 
<Dut of which the English general was peeping, 
and he fell back, mortally wounded. 

This was a piece of good fortune for the 
French, but there were plenty of other English 
generals to take the place of Salisbury. The 
English built strong fortresses here and there, 
outside the walls and gates of the town, to pre- 
vent help and food and wine and powder from 
being brought to the besieged French. But the 
people of Orleans were brave, and were com- 
manded by good officers, such as Dunois, young 
Xaintrailles, La Hire, a rough, swearing knight, 
and others who became true friends of Joan of 
Arc, and food was brought in easily enough. 

The English had won so many battles that 
they despised the French, and so they did not 



HOW JOAN OBEYED THE VOICES 19 

take pains, and, besides, they had not men 
enough to surround Orleans and prevent cattle 
being driven in from the country. The English 
seem to have had no more than four thousand 
soldiers. They were neither strong enough to take 
the town by storm, nor many enough to surround 
it and starve the French into showing the white 
flag, and giving up the place. 

In fact, the English had been beating the 
French just because they believed they could 
beat them, and thought that one Englishman 
was as good as three Frenchmen at least. This 
was nonsense, but, under Henry V., at Agincourt, 
a few English had beaten a great French army, 
because the French fought foolishly, trying to 
gallop to the charge over wet, heavy ploughed 
land, while the English archers shot them down 
in hundreds. But the French, you will see, had 
learned the English way of fighting on foot, and 
could have held their own, if they had not lost 
confidence. 



CHAPTER IV 

HOW JOAN HEARD NEWS STRANGELY 

Joan, far away in Domremy, would hear of the 
danger in which Orleans lay, now and then, and 
her Voices kept insisting that she must go and 
drive away the English. She used to cry, and 
say that she would be quite useless, as she could 
not ride or fight, and people would think her 
mad, or bad, and laugh at her. 

The Voices told her to go to the nearest strong- 
walled French town, Vaucouleurs, and ask the 
commander there, Robert de Baudricourt, to send 
her to the Dauphin, who was then far away, at 
Chinon, a castle on the Loire, south of Orleans. 
When she saw the King, she was to tell him 
that she had come to save France. 

This seemed quite a mad proposal. Baudricourt 
was a great, rough, sensible soldier, and how 
could Joan go to him with a message of this 
kind ? He would merely laugh at the simburned 
girl in her short red kirtle — a girl who, probably, 
had never spoken to a gentleman before. 

Perhaps this was the hardest part of Joan's 
duty, for she was modest, and she was very quick 
to notice anything absurd and ridiculous. Now 
nothing could seem more laughable than the 

20 



NEWS HEARD STRANGELY 21 

notion that a little country wench of sixteen 
could teach the French to defeat the English. 
But there was no help for it. The Voices, and 
the shining cloud, and the faces of Saints and 
angels came, several times every week, and a 
Voice said, " Daughter of God, go on ! I will ba 
with you." 

Joan had an uncle who lived near Vaucouleurs, 
and she went to stay with him. It seems that 
she told him she must go to the Dauphin, and 
the first thing needful was to get Robert de 
Baudricourt to lend her a few men-at-arms, who 
would protect her on her long journey to Chinon. 
The imcle must have been very much astonished, 
but it seems that he believed in her, for he took 
her to Robert. Of course Robert laughed, and 
told Joan's uncle to take her away, and box her 
ears. But she came again, and then a priest 
wanted to exorcise her, that it is to frighten the 
devil out of her, with religious services and holy 
water, as if she had been "possessed," like peo- 
ple in the New Testament. But Joan was not 
possessed, and the priest, after trying the holy 
water, could only say so. 

By this time the month of February 1429 had 
come round. The besieged French in Orleans 
had now a great misfortune. The season of Lent 
was coming ; that is, a time when they were not 
allowed to eat beef and mutton, but only fish, 
and eggs, and vegetables. Now a great nimiber 
of wagons loaded with herrings were being sent 



22 JOAN OF ARC 

to feed the English who were besieging Orleans. 
The general of the French in Orleans knew that, 
and he determined to send out soldiers to attack 
the English who would be guarding the long line 
of wagons full of herrings. They would wait for 
the English on the road, cut them up, and carry 
the fish into the town for their own use. 

So a great many of the Scots and some French 
slipped out of Orleans by night, and went to a 
place called Rouvray, on the road by which the 
herrings were to pass. Here they were to be 
joined by another small French army, under a 
general named Clermont. So they reached Rou- 
vray, where they did not find Clermont and his 
men, but did see the English soldiers far away, 
marching by the side of the long line of wagons. 

Instead of waiting hidden under cover till the 
English passed by, and then rushing among 
them unexpectedly, Stewart of Darnley cried, 
*' Charge ! " and rode, with his lance in rest, at 
the English front. The Scots were alw^ays in too 
great a hurry to fight. The English saw them 
coming, arranged the heavy wagons in a square, 
and went inside the square, so that the Scots 
could not get at them. Safe behind their carts, 
the English archers shot down the Scots, who 
thought bows and arrows rather mean weapons, 
and wanted to cut down their enemies with the 
sword. But they could not reach the English ; they 
fell in piles of slain men round the square, and 
Clermont, the French general who was to have 



NEWS HEARD STRANGELY 23 

joined them, would not fight, and took away his 
army. So very many brave Scots were killed, 
with Stewart of Darnley at their head, and the 
rest retreated sadly to Orleans, where they heard 
the English hurrahing in their camp. 

This was called the battle of Rouvray, or the 
battle of the Herrings. It was fought on Febru- 
ary 12, 1429. Joan went to Baudricourt, and told 
him that a terrible misfortune had happened that 
day to the army of the Dauphin, near Orleans. 
The news could not possibly reach Vaucouleurs 
for several days, for the distance between Vau- 
couleurs and Orleans is great, and the roads 
were dangerous, and might be beset by English 
soldiers and by robbers, who would stop mes- 
sengers. Joan had been told of the defeat by 
her Voices. 

At last, however, the bad news did come. 
Joan had been right, the French and Scots had 
been defeated on the day when she told Baudri- 
court of it, February 12. 

So Baudricourt saw there was something un- 
common in this country girl, who knew what 
was happening far away, and he lent her two 
young gentlemen and a few men-at-arms to 
guide her and guard her on her way to the Dau- 
phin. Somebody gave her a horse, which, to the 
surprise of all men, she rode very well. She had 
her long black hair cut short and close, as soldiers 
wore it ; she dressed in a gray doublet and black 
hose, like a boy (she wore this kind of dress till 



24 JOAN OF ARC 

the end of her life) ; and then she rode through 
the gate of Vaucouleurs, which is still standing, 
and away to seek the Dauphin. This was on 
February 23, 1429. 

After riding for several days, Joan and her 
company reached a little town called Fierbois, 
near Chinon. Here was the chapel dedicated to 
St. Catherine of Fierbois, who was a favorite 
Saint of the French and Scots soldiers, and of 
Joan. In the chapel was a book in which the 
miracles of the Saint were written down. At 
this very time a Scottish archer, Michael Hamil- 
ton, from Shotts, was caught by some country 
people, and was hanged by them. During the 
night a voice came to the priest of the village, 
saying, " Go and cut down that Scot who was 
hanged, for he is not dead." However, the priest 
was sleepy, and he did not go. Next day was 
Easter Day, and the priest went to church and 
did the services. After that, he thought he 
might as well see about the Scot who was hang- 
ing from a tree, and seemed quite dead. To 
make certain, the priest took his penknife, and 
cut the dead man's toe. On this the man gave 
a kick, so the priest cut the rope, and took good 
care of Michael Hamilton. When he was able 
to ride, Michael went to this chapel of Fierbois, 
and took the oath that he had prayed to St. 
Catherine before he was hanged up, and now he 
came to thank her for his escape at her chapel. 
The book of the chapel is full of these strange 



NEWS HEARD STRANGELY 



25 



stories, and probably some of them were read 
aloud to Joan, who could not read, and said that 
she "did not know A from B.'' She attended 
three Masses at Fierbois, and got some learned 
clerk to write a letter to the King, to say that 
she was coming. She also had a letter written 
to her father and mother, asking them to pardon 
her for going away without their permission. 
Her father she was to see once more, her mother 
she never saw again. 

As to Michael Hamilton, you may believe ^his 
story or not, as you like. Many of the other 
stories told in the chapel book by Scots soldiers, 
and French men and women, are just as curious. 
I only know that the people made long journeys 
to thank Madame Saint Catherine in her church 
at Fierbois, and that their stories were written 
down in the book there. 




CHAPTER V 

HOW THE MAID SAW THE DAUPHIN 

When Joan reached Chinon, she was lodged with 
a lady who was very kind, and she waited to see 
the Dauphin. His advisors were not sure that 
he ought to see the Maid at all ; but probably he 
was curious, and at last she was brought to the 
castle, and led up the stairs to a great hall, 
where were many men in splendid dresses. The 
castle is in ruins now, and the hall has no roof 
over it, but you can still go in and see the walls, 
and empty windows, and the great fireplace. A 
man plainly dressed was in the crowd of magni- 
ficent courtiers in silk and gold embroidery. 
Joan went straight up, and kneeling on one knee, 
said, " Fair Sir, you are the Dauphin to whom I 
am come." But the man pointed to a knight, 
very richly dressed, and said, "That is the 
King." 

" No, fair Sir," said Joan ; " it is to you that 
I am sent." 

The Dauphin, for the man was the Dauphin, 
was surprised at this, for she had never seen 
him before. He allowed Joan to come to the 
castle and talk to him, but he was not sure that 
she was not an impost er, or a silly girl. 

26 



HOW THE MAID SAW THE DAUPHIN 




Joan tells the King her secret. — Page 27 



SEES THE DAUPHIN 27 

One day, however, she took him aside, into a 
corner where nobody cotdd hear what they were 
talking about. When their, conversation ended, 
the Dauphin looked very grave, and Jeanne 
looked very glad. She had told him something 
that made him believe in her. 

What had Joan told to the King? It was 
known at the time that she had told him some- 
thing that amazed him, for it is mentioned in a 
letter written a few weeks later by Alan Ghartier, 
a famous poet. But nobody knew the secret : 
Joan would never let any one know. When she 
was a prisoner among the English, the French 
priests and lawyers tried to make her speak, but 
she would not. It was her King's secret. 

Eight years after Joan was dead, a very strange 
thing happened. A woman who said that Joan 
had not died, and that she was Joan, came to 
Orleans with Joan's brothers. The people of 
Orleans, who had known the Maid very well, 
believed that this woman was Joan come again, 
and feasted her and gave her presents. Then 
she was taken to the King. He himseK was 
puzzled, and said, " Maid, my dear, I am glad to 
see you again. Do you remember the secret be- 
tween you and me ? " 

Then this false pretender to be the Maid con- 
fessed that she knew nothing. 

When the King was old, he revealed the 
secret to a friend. 

On that day when they went apart together at 



28 JOAN OF ARC 

Chinon, Joan reminded him of the secret prayer 
which, as I told you, the Dauphin had made 
when alone, asking that he might know whether 
he really was the son of the late King, and him- 
self the rightful King of France. 

" You are the rightful King," Joan said. 

When the Dauphin heard her words, he made 
things go on quicker. Priests were sent to Joan's 
village to find out if she had been a good girl 
when she was at home. Then she was taken to 
Poitiers, to be examined by many learned men, 
priests and lawyers. They tried to perplex her 
by their questions, but she was straightforward, 
and told them how the Voices had come to her. 
One man asked her to give a sign by working a 
miracle. 

" I have not come to Poitiers to give signs," 
said Joan ; " but let me go to Orleans, and you 
shall see what I will do." 

She never professed to work miracles. She 
wanted to lead an army to Orleans, and the sign 
to be given was the defeat of the English, and 
the rescue of the besieged town. 

For six weary weeks the learned men and 
priests examined Joan, and tried in every way to 
find some fault in her answers. 

At last they drew up a report and signed it, 
saying that ^Ho doubt the Maid would be to 
resist the Holy Spirit." What they were afraid 
of all the time was that Joan might be advised 
by spirits, to be sure, but evil spirits or devils. 



SEES THE DAUPHIN 29 

The English and the French lawyers on the Eng- 
lish side, declared that Joan was possessed by 
devils. They thought that, because they could 
not deny her powers; but, as she was not on 
their side, her powers could not come from God, 
but from Satan. To think in that way is common : 
people always believe that their own side is the 
right side. But nobody ever heard of evil spirits 
taking possession of any one who was really 
good ; and no man could ever find any single 
bad thing in Joan the Maid. 

So now the Dauphin began to collect an army 
to march with Joan to Orleans. Of course he 
ought to have done that before, even if there had 
been no Joan. It was a shameful thing that a 
strong town, full of brave men, should be taken 
by four thousand Englishmen, without an effort 
by the French to drive the English away. But 
the French had lost all heart and courage : the 
brave Dunois himself said that a large force of 
French would run away from a little company of 
English. All that the French uf the Dauphin's 
party needed was courage and confidence. As 
soon as they believed in Joan they were full of 
confidence. They could not turn their backs as 
long as a girl of sixteen ran forward in front of 
them, through the rain of arrows, and bullets, and 
cannon balls, waving her banner, and crying 
" Come on ! " 

At this time Joan prophesied that she would 
be wounded by an arrow at Orleans, but not to 



30 JOAN OF ARC 

death. So a Flemish ambassador at Chinon wrote 
to the magistrates of his town at home, and his 
letter was copied into the town council's book, 
before the Maid went to the war. 

White armor was made for Joan to wear, and 
a Scottish painter made a banjier with sacred 
pictures for her to carry : his daughter was a 
great friend of Joan. 

The Maid said that, as for a sword, if they 
dug in the ground behind the altar at the chapel 
of St. Catherine, in Fierbois, they would find a 
buried sword, which she wished to carry ; and it 
was found, old and rusty, with five crosses on 
the blade. The Duke of Alencon, a young cousin 
of the King's, who had been a prisoner of the 
English, saw Joan riding one day, and was so 
pleased with her grace and good horsemanship, 
that he gave her a very good horse, and became 
one of her best friends. "My fair Duke" was 
what she used to call him. Every one said that 
Joan's manners were as gentle and courteous as 
those of the greatest ladies, though she had been 
brought up in a poor cottage. Everything that 
she did was done in the best way and the 
noblest. 



CHAPTER VI 

HOW THE MAID RODE TO ORLEANS 

When Joan's army was gathered, with plenty of 
good things, and pow^der and shot, in wagons, 
for the people of Orleans, she gave orders that 
no loose people should follow them. The soldiers 
must not drink and play dice and cards. They 
must pray, and must never swear. One of the 
generals, the brave La Hire, asked that he might 
be allowed one little oath, so she said he might 
swear "by his baton," the short staff which he 
carried as a leader. Then Joan mounted, and 
rode at the head of the army out of the gate of 
Blois. The French Commander at Orleans, 
Dunois, had sent to say that they must march 
up the bank of the Loire opposite to that on 
which Orleans stands, for the English were very 
strong, with many fortifications, on the road on 
the Orleans side and would stop them. Dunois 
seems to have thought that Joan's army should 
go above the town, and be ferried across with 
the supplies for the city — for the English held 
the bridge — but that they could not cut their 
way through the main body of the English army 
on the other side of the river. But to go straight 
through the English where they were strongest 

31 



32 JOAN OF ARC 

was what Joan had intended. Therefore she was 
angry when she arrived at the place where 
Dunois was waiting for her, and saw that the 
river lay between her and the town of Orleans. 
Yon may think that her Voices should have told 
her that she was marching on the wrong bank of 
the river: however, they did not. She asked 
Dunois why he had ordered them to come by the 
road they took. She said, 

*' I bring you better help than has ever come 
to any town or captain, the help of the King of 
heaven." 

Dunois himself has left this account of what 
Joan said, and, as she was speaking, the wind 
changed. It had been blowing in such a way as 
to make it hard for the boats to carry Joan and 
the provisions across the river, but now it went 
about, and they crossed easily, some way above 
the town. As for the army, Joan ordered them 
back to Blois, to cross by the bridge there, and 
march to Orleans again, past the forts and 
through the midst of the English. 

Once across the river, Joan mounted again j 
with her banner of Our Lord and the Lilies in 
her hand, and with Dunois at her side, and rode 
to the town. They passed an English fortress, 
the Church of St. Loup, in safety, and the people 
came out to meet them. Night had fallen, and 
the people who crowded round the Maid were 
carrying torches. One of these set fire to the 
fringe of her banner and made her horse plunge ; 



RIDES TO ORLEANS 




She crushed out the flame with her left hand.— Page 33 



RIDES TO ORLEANS 33 

but she crushed out the flame with her left hand 
in its steel glove, and reigned in her horse easily, 
while the people cheered, and the women wished 
to kiss her hand, which she did not like, think- 
ing the honor too great. It was a beautiful sight 
to see the Maid ride into Orleans town. From 
that hour there was no more fear among the 
French. 

Dunois said, " till that day, two hundred Eng- 
lish could scatter eight hundred or a thousand of 
our men, but now they skulked in their forts 
and dared not come out against us." This is an 
extraordinary thing, for Talbot, who led the 
English, was the bravest captain living. Jeanne 
sent to him a letter to bid him break up his 
camp and go away. The English laughed, and 
one day, when Joan went out to speak to them, 
they called her ill names, so that she wept for 
shame. But, somehow, the English had certainly 
lost heart, or they had some reason which we do 
not know, for merely defending their fortresses. 

On the day after Joan entered Orleans she 
wanted Dunois to sally out of the town with his 
men and assail the English. He did not think it 
wise to do so, and Joan went up to her own room. 
Suddenly she rushed down and csked her page 
why he had not told her that the French were 
fighting, she did not know where. It was at the 
fort and Church of St. Loup, which Joan had 
passed on her way into Orleans. On this side, 
namely, farther up the river, above the town, the 



34 



JOAN OF ARC 



English were weakest, as they did not expect to 
be attacked on that side. The French were 
victorious : when they saw Joan ride np they 
were filled with courage. Joan saw a French- 
man strike down an English prisoner : she dis- 
mounted, laid the poor prisoner's head in her 
lap, and did her best to comfort him. 




CHAPTER VII 

HOW THE MAID SAVED ORLEANS 

The Dauphin had given Joan a gentleman of 
good character to be with her always, and take 
care of her. This gentleman was named Jean 
d'Aulon, and, as he has left an account of what 
Joan did at Orleans, we give what he said. On 
the day after Joan took the fortress of St. Loup 
from the English, she led her men to attack 
another English work on the farther side of the 
river. They coidd not cross by the bridge, of 
course, for the English held the strong building, 
Les ToureUes, at the bridge end, the place where 
the Earl of Salisbury was killed by the cannon 
shot ; moreover an arch of the bridge had been 
broken, lest the English should cross. So they 
went in boats to an island in the middle of the 
river, and then made a bridge of boats across 
the other branch of the Loire. But they found 
that the English had left the place which they 
meant to attack, and were in a much stronger 
fortress. The French, therefore, were returning 
to their boats, when the English rushed out of 
the second fortress to attack them when off their 
guard. But Joan and her friend La Hire, who 
had crossed the river with their horses, saw the 

35 



36 JOAN OF ARC 

English, coming on, and put their lances in rest 
(a kind of support for the level spear), and 
spurred their horses at their enemies. The rest 
of the French, followed Joan, and drove the 
English, back into their fortress. Meanwhile 
d'Aulon, and a Spanish gentleman on the French 
side, took each other by the hand, and ran as fast 
as they could till they struck their swords against 
the outer fence, or strong wooden palisade of 
the English. But in the narrow gateway stood 
a tall and very strong Englishman, who drove 
back the French. So d'Aulon asked a Frenchman, 
a good shot, to aim at the Englishman, whom 
he killed, and then d'Aulon and the Spaniard 
ran into the gateway, and held it, while Joan and 
the rest of the French rushed in, and all the 
English were killed or gave themselves up as 
prisoners. 

By this time the French army which went 
down to Blois to cross the bridge, had returned 
to Orleans, and gone past the English fortresses 
without being attacked. So there were now many 
fighting men in Orleans. Next day, therefore, 
Joan insisted that they should attack the strong- 
est of all the English forts, Les Tourelles, at the 
end of the bridge farthest from the town. The 
generals thought this plan too dangerous, as the 
fortress was so strong ; but no doubt Joan was 
right, because the English on the town side of 
the river could not cross over to help their coun- 
trymen. If they crossed in boats, they would 



SAVES ORLEANS 37 

be shot, and cut down as they landed. If the 
French generals did not tinderstand that, Joan 
did. She was full of confidence. A man asked 
her to wait for breakfast, and offered her a big 
trout caught in the Loire. She said, " Keep it 
for supper. I will bring back an English 

Sirisoner to help to eat it. And I will come back 
y the bridge.'' Now the bridge, we saw, was 
broken. D'Aulon heard her say this, and no doubt 
he wondered what she meant. He understood 
her, at night. 

So Joan caused the gate to be thrown open, 
and the town's people, who were very eager, 
rushed to the river bank, and crossed in boats. 
The regular soldiers followed, and all day long 
they attacked the walls, carrying ladders to climb 
them with, while Joan stood under the wall, 
waving her banner, and crying " Forward ! '^ 
But from behind the battlement, the English 
kept shooting with arrows and muskets, so that 
many of the French were killed and a strong 
Englishman threw down the ladders as they 
were pushed to the top of the walls. There 
were five or six hundred of the best of the Eng- 
lish in this castle, under two leaders whom the 
French call " Bumus " and " Glasidas." The name 
of " Glasidas '' was Glasdale ; we do not know 
who " Bumus " was ! So all day companies of the 
French and Scots, carrying ladders, and with 
banners flying, went down into the deep ditch 
below the wall, and were shot or driven out. 



38 JOAN OF ARC 

Now the great Dunois, the most famous of the 
French leaders, tells xis what Joan did. It was 
about one o'clock in the afternoon, when the 
thing that she had prophesied happened to her. 
A bolt from an English cross-bow passed through 
her armor between the collar-bone and the 
shoulder-blade, and stood out six inches behind 
her shoulder. She was carried out of range, 
and the arrow was drawn out. Another witness 
says that a soldier wished to sing a magical song 
over the wound, to heal it, but she would not 
allow this to be done, and went back into the 
battle, hurt as she was. She cried a little. 

They fought on : they had begun in the early 
morning, and it was eight o'clock, and past sun- 
set, when Dunois said that they could not take 
the fort that day, and wished to call off the sol- 
diers from the ditch. But Joan came to him, 
and asked him to wait a little while. She 
mounted her horse, and rode to a vineyard, and 
there she prayed, " for half a quarter of an hour." 
Then she rode back, and went through the hail 
of shot and arrows to the edge of the ditch, while 
d'Aulon covered her, he says, with his shield. 
She saw that a soldier had taken her standard 
into the ditch. She seized the standard, and it 
waved so that all her men saw it, and rushed up ; 
" We shall take the fort," said Joan, " when my 
standard touches the wall." The wind blew the 
banner fringe against the wall, and the French 
made one more rush, they climbed the ladders, 





y 5 O O O O 

«>j £u a. <u (u 0. 





xv-^ T?^ <,<S Pi i ' 



ni 

> 







40 JOAN OF ARC 

they tumbled into the fort, and the English were 
slain or taken, and Glasdale, their leader, who 
tried to cross to another tower by a plank, fell 
into the river and was drowned. 

Then Joan crossed back to Orleans by the 
bridge, as d* Anion heard her say that she would, 
when she set out in the morning. For the town's 
people laid a beam across the broken arch, and 
on this she walked over, after winning so great 
a victory by her own courage. For Dunois says 
that the English were terrified when they saw 
her under the wall again, in the growing dark- 
ness, and that they had no more heart to fight. 

Joan was very tired ; she had her wound 
dressed by a surgeon, and, for supper, she had 
four or five little pieces of toast, dipped in weak 
wine and water : that was all she ate, Dunois 
says, all that long day. 

Early next morning the English left their 
forts, and drew up in line of battle. Joan had 
put on a very light shirt of mail, made of steel 
rings, because her wound did not permit her to 
wear the usual armor made of heavy steel plates. 
She said that the English must be allowed to go 
away, and must not be attacked. 

Thus the town of Orleans was delivered on 
8th May, and ever since, to this day, they keep 
a festival on 8th May in every year, and rejoice in 
honor of the Maid. All the expense and labor 
of the English in the seven months' siege had 
been turned to waste by Joan in four days, 



SAVES ORLEANS 4]' 

France was free, soutli of the Loire, and Joan 
had kept her word, she had shown a sign at 
Oiieans. 

It sounds like a fairy-tale, but it certainly 
happened. Joan made the French able to do 
what they did merely by giving them courage. 
Her army would not have come together if she 
had not given them something to believe in — her- 
self. She thought that she led about 10,000 
men ; but it is not easy to be sure of the numbers. 
The English, if they were only 4,000, could not 
resist the new army and the old garrison of Or- 
leans, if the French had faith in themselves ; 
and Joan gave them faith. At the same time the 
English seem to have arranged their army in a 
very foolish way. About 1000 were on the 
farther side of a river which the 3000 on the 
right bank could not, or did not try to cross, to 
help their friends. The larger part of the Eng- 
lish army might have attacked one of the gates 
of Orleans, and frightened Joan's army, who 
would have come back across the river to defend 
the town. The English in the fortress at the 
farther end of the bridge would then have been 
safe. But the English on the right bank did 
nothing at all, for some reason which we do not 
understand. 



CHAPTER Vin 

HOW THE MAID TOOK THE TOWN OF JARQEAU. 

After Orleans was quite safe, and when Talbot 
had led the English army to the town of Meun, 
Joan wanted to take the Dauphin to Rheims, to 
be crowned and anointed with the holy oil, and 
made King in earnest. But the way was long, 
and the road passed through towns which were 
held by friends of the English. So the Dauphin 
loitered about in pleasant castles near the Loire, 
in the bright May weather, and held councils, 
and wondered what he ought to do. Then Joan 
rode with the brave Dunois to Loches where the 
Dauphin was. Some lords and priests were in 
the room with him, but Joan went straight in, 
and knelt before him, saying, " Fair Dauphin, do 
not hold so many weary councils, but come to 
Rheims, and take your crown." 

So they said that they would think about it, 
but was it safe to leave English armies behind 
them, at Meun, where Talbot was, and at Jar- 
geau, where the Earl of Suffolk was the English 
captain ? Joan said that she and the young Duke 
of Alencon would make their minds easy on that 
point, and would begin by taking Jargeau, where 
the French, without Joan, had fought already 

42 



HOW SHE TOOK JARGEAU 




Joan is wounded by the arrow. — Page 38 



HOW SHE TOOK JARGEAU 43 

and been beaten. The Duke was newly married 
to a young wife, who was anxious about him, but 
Joan said, " Madam, I will bring back the Duke 
to you, safe and well ! " 

So they rode away, six hundred lances, with 
some infantry, and slept in a wood. The Duke 
of Alencon has left an account of all that they 
did. Next day Dunois and other captains joined 
them with another six hundred lances, so that, 
with the infantry, they would be about five 
thousand men. Some of the captains thought 
they were not strong enough, as Jargeau had 
thick walls and towers, and cannon. But Joan 
insisted on fighting, and first she led her men to 
drive the English from the houses lying under 
the walls on the outside, which is dangerous 
fighting, as all the garden walls would protect 
English cross-bowmen, and men with muskets, 
who could shoot in safety, many of them from 
windows of houses, at the French in the open. 
The French, however, drove the English from 
the houses and gardens, and brought up their 
cannon, and fired at the town. 

In these days cannon were small, and shot 
small balls, which did not carry far, and could 
do no damage to thick stone walls. There were 
no shells, which explode, but there were a few 
very large iron guns, like Mons Meg in Edin- 
burgh Castle. Out of these they shot huge, 
heavy stone balls, and if one of them fell into a 
street, and broke, the splinters flew about 



44 JOAN OF ARC 

dangerously. But, somehow, they seldom did 
much harm, besides Joan's army had none of 
these great guns, which are not easily dragged 
about. 

So for days the French fired at the town, and 
it is to be supposed that they broke a hole, or 
breach, in a part of the wall, for they decided to 
rush in and take the place sword in hand. 

" Forward, fair Duke ! '' said Joan to the Duke 
of Alencon, who rather thought that they had 
not made a good enough breach in the wall. 
** You know that I told the Duchess I would bring 
you back safe? But do not stand there,'^ she 
said, *' or that English cannon on the wall will 
kill you.'' 

The Duke moved from the place where he was, 
and a gentleman named de Lude went to it, and 
was killed. 

So Joan saved the Duke, as she had promised. 

Then they ran together to the wall, and Joan 
was climbing up a ladder, when a heavy stone 
thrown by the English struck her helmet, and 
she fell. 

She rose again at once, crying, " Forward, we 
shall take them all," and the English z'aa 
through the streets to the bridges, the French 
following and cutting them down, or taking them 
prisoners. It is said that the Earl of Suffolk 
surrendered to Joan, " as the bravest woman in 
the world." If this is true, she might have made 
a great deal of money out of his ransom, that is, 



HOW SHE TOOK JARGEAU 45 

the price which, a prisoner paid for his freedom. 
There is another story that Suffolk was taken by 
a squire, and that he dubbed him knight before 
he surrendered, as it was more honorable to yield 
to a knight. This is more likely to be true, for 
the English thought that Joan was a witch. 
Now, as Suffolk was general of all the English 
forces on the Loire, he woidd not choose to sur- 
render to a lass of sixteen, whether he believed 
in witches or not. Besides, he could not dub 
Joan a knight. 




CHAPTER IX 

HOW JOAN DEFEATED THE ENGLISH IN FAIR FIELD 

The Maid had now driven the English away from 
Orleans, and had taken a strong town which they 
held, a thing the French, without her, had failed 
to do. She was next to beat their army in the 
open country and in fair field. We know most 
about this battle from a book written by a gentle- 
man named Pierre de Cagny, who rode with the 
Duke of Alen9on and knew what happened, and 
wrote all down very soon afterwards. He says 
that the Maid placed a garrison of soldiers to 
keep Jargeau, and then rode to Orleans with the 
Duke, where the townspeople gave a great feast 
to her and her friends. But she did not stay long 
to be petted and praised at Orleans. In the 
evening she said to the Duke, " I am going, after 
dinner to-morrow, to see the English at Meun. 
Have the men ready to march." She easily made 
Meun surrender, and then her guns fired at the 
town of Beaugency. 

Then news came to Joan that the whole Eng- 
lish army, under Talbot and Sir John Fastolf 
(who cannot be Sir John Falstaff in Shakespeare, 
for the fat knight was dead), were marching 
against her. Now Sir John FastoK, though a 

46 



DEFEATS THE ENGLISH 47 

very brave captain, thought, like the fat knight, 
that ** discretion was the better part of valor." 
He wished to be cautious, and to avoid a battle, 
for he saw that the French were in high spirits, 
while the English soldiers had lost heart. This 
is told in the book written by a knight named 
Jean de Wavrin, a Burgundian. He was, like all of 
them of Burgundy, on the English side, and he 
rode under the banner of Sir John Fastolf. 

I tell you generally how we come to know the 
things done by the Maid, to show that the story 
is true, as the people who described it were 
present, and saw what happened. 

The other English captains thought Sir John 
rather too cautious, and Talbot said, "By St. 
George, I will fight if I have only my own few 
men with me ! ** Next morning the English rode 
out with banners flying, and again Sir John said 
that they were too few, and that they were risk- 
ing all that Henry V. had gained in France. But 
Talbot and the rest would not listen to him, so 
the trumpets blew, and the horsemen rode on 
towards Meun, which Joan had taken. When 
they came to a place about three miles from 
Meun, and three from Beaugency, they saw the 
banner of the Maid, with Our Lord and the Lilies 
of France, and the banners of the Duke of Alen- 
con, and Dunois, and La Hire, and young Pothon 
de Xaintrailles, a very gallant boy, waving over 
the ranks of 6000 men. 

The English then did what Henry V. had 



48 JOAN OF ARC 

taught them to do. They dismounted from their 
horses to fight on foot, and made each bowman 
plant his sharp stake in front of him, to stop a 
cavalry charge. This plan usually succeeded. 

The French were fond of charging with their 
cavalry at full speed, and then were usually shot 
down in heaps by the English bowmen, whom 
they could not reach, as they were safe behind 
their fence of pikes. Then the dismounted Eng- 
lish would rush out, sword in hand, among the 
disordered French cavalry. 

You see this was much like part of the battle 
of Waterloo, when the French cavalry many 
times rode at the English squares, and could not 
break through the bayonets, while the English 
were shooting at them — not very straight ! 

By this plan of fighting the English had often 
defeated the French, and usually defeated the 
Scots, who generally made a wild rush at them. 
At the battle of Duplin, soon after Robert Bruce 
died, the English archers shot from each flank 
till the Scots, as they charged, fell dead in heaps 
as high as a tall spear. But Dunois, and the fair 
Duke, and the Maid knew this plan. They sent 
a herald to bid the English go home to bed ; it 
was late ; " to-morrow we shall have a nearer view 
of each other." 

The English, therefore, went off to Meun, 
where nobody resisted them except the French 
soldiers who guarded the bridge over the Loire. 
The English meant to beat the French from the 



DEFEATS THE ENGLISH ^^ 49 

bridge with their cannons, cross the river, and 
march to help their friends in Beaugency, which 
had not yet yielded to Joan. The English would 
thus take Joan'^ army between two fires, that of 
Beaugency, and that of Talbot's army. 

But that very night the English in Beaugency 
lost heart, and yielded to the Maid, being allowed 
to march away with their arms and horses. Joan 
now bade the French captains go with her army, 
and look for Talbot's and Fastolf's force, who 
would hear of the surrender of Beaugency, and 
retreat to Paris through the country called La 
Beauce. 

"But how are we to find the English?" the 
French leaders asked Joan : for they would be in 
a wild, empty country covered with forests. 

" Ride forth," she said ; " we shall take them 
all. As to finding them, you shall have a good 
guide .' " 

They had a strange guide, as you shall hear. 

The English were marching along, in front 
was their advanced guard, under a knight who 
carried a white banner. Next came the guns, 
with the wagons full of provisions. Third was 
the main body of the army, under Talbot and 
Fastolf ; and last rode the rear-guard. When 
they were near a place called Pathay, their scouts 
galloped in, with news that they had seen the 
French army. The English halted, and sent out 
more scouts, who rode back with the same news. 

So Talbot sent his advanced guard, the guns 



50 JOAN OF ARC 

and the wagons behind some tall hedges. The 
main body of the English army was being placed 
at the end of a long lane between two thick 
hedges, and Talbot set five hundred of his best 
archers to lurk behind these hedges, between 
which the French would have to pass before they 
could attack the centre of his forces. If the 
French once entered this long lane, they would 
be shot down, and fall into such confusion among 
their own fallen men and wounded horses, that 
they would neither be able to go forward nor 
back, and would all be killed or taken prisoners. 
The French of Joan*s army could not see what 
Talbot was doing, and the trap he had set, nor 
where his army was, the country being covered 
with wood and bracken, and the English being 
concealed by the swelling of the ground. How- 
ever, they rode forward fast, and would have 
been between the fire of the two hidden lines of 
English bowmen in a minute, when, lo and be- 
hold ! they had " the good guide " that Joan had 
promised them ! As they rode they roused a 
stag from the bracken where he was lying : the 
stag rushed forward into the concealed lines of 
English archers, and they, being hunters like 
Eobin Hood's men, forgot to lie still, and raised 
a view halloo, and shot at the stag. Then the 
foremost riders of the French heard them, and 
knew where the English were lying in ambush. 
When Talbot saw that his ambush was foimd 
out, he hurried the main body of his army up to 



DEFEATS THE ENGLISH 51 

the hedges. Sir John Fastolf 's men were spurring 
their horses on to join their advanced guard, but 
the English knight of the white banner who led 
thought that Fastolf's cavalry were French, and 
that the French were attacking his men both in 
front and rear. So he and his company ran away 
leaving the lane unguarded. Thus, when the 
battle began, Talbot was defeated by Joan's 
cavalry, and taken prisoner, and 2200 of the 
English were killed or taken before Fastolf came 
up. He and his horsemen then rode away as fast 
as they could, to save their lives, and for this 
behavior Sir John got into very deep disgrace, 
though, according to Wavrin, who was with him, 
he really could have done nothing else, as Tal- 
bot was beaten before he could arrive. As 
Wavrin had taken part in the flight, he had to 
make as good a defence of Sir John as he could. 
At all events, Joan and her party won a very 
great victory, the battle of Pathay. 

Now look what Joan had done. She drove 
the English from Orleans on 8th May. Then the 
Dauphin took to holding long and weary coun- 
cils, and she did not get another chance to fight 
the English till about 4th June, so nearly a 
month of her one year of time was wasted. On 
11th June she took Jargeau, on 15th June she 
took Meun, on 17th June she took Beaugency, 
and on 18th June she destroyed Talbot's chief 
army at Pathay ! 

The Duke of Alencon tells us that he himself 



52 JOAN OF ARC 

heard Joan tell the Dauphin, again and again, 
that " she would only last for a year, or not much 
longer, and that he must make haste." She had 
four things to do, she said : to drive the English 
in flight, to crown the King at Rheims, to deliver 
Orleans, and to set free the Duke of Orleans, who 
was a prisoner in England. 

She did drive the English in flight, she did 
save Orleans, she did have the Dauphin crowned. 
But the French would not make haste. The 
Dauphin was always slow, and the stupid poli- 
tical advisers who never fought but only talked, 
made him more slow, and, when Joan's year was ' 
over, for her prophecy was true, she was taken 
prisoner by the English. Therefore they were 
not driven quite out of France till about twenty 
years or more after the end of the year of Joan 
the Maid. It was not her fault. She knew that 
her time was short, and she told them to make 
haste. When she was asked how she knew 
things that were to happen, she said that her 
Voices told her, " my Council," she called them. 
But there was a French noble. La Tremoille, the 
King's favorite, and he was jealous of Joan and 
Dunois and the Constable of Brittany, an enemy 
of his, who had now come to ride under Joan's 
flag. 

This Tremoille, and others, did not want to 
fight, and hoped to make friends with the Duke 
of Burgundy, whose army, though really French, 
fought on the side of the English. Now the one 



DEFEATS THE ENGLISH 53 

chance was to keep hitting the English hard and 
often, while they were shaken by their defeats, 
and before they had time to bring a new host 
from home. In England there was an army 
ready, which had been collected by Cardinal 
Beaufort, to fight the Hussites, a kind of warlike 
Protestants who were active in Germany. As 
soon as Joan had beaten the English at Orleans, 
they made up their minds to send this new army 
of theirs to protect Paris, where most of the 
people, and the University, were on the English 
side. They also made an arrangement with 
James I. of Scotland, so that they had nothing to 
fear from the Scots coming over the Border to 
attack them. The English were able to do all 
this because La Tremoille and his friends advised 
the Dauphin to loiter about, instead of making 
haste, as Joan desired, to keep on beating the 
English. 




CHAPTER X 

HOW JOAN LED THE DAUPHIN TO BE CROWNED 

We may think that Joan's best plan would have 
been to attack the English in Paris at once, while 
they were still in a fright, after their great defeat 
at Pathay. But she thought that if the Dauphin 
was once crowned, and anointed with the holy 
oil, at Rheims, the French who were of the Eng^ 
lish party would join him more readily. Robert 
the Bruce, in the same way, had himself crowned 
at Scone, which, in Scotland, was the usual place 
for coronations, when he had only very few 
followers, and very little chance of beating the 
English. Rheims is a long way farther from Or- 
leans than Paris, on the north-east. But Joan 
had made up her mind to drag the Dauphin to 
Rheims to be crowned. 

The Dauphin was lingering at Gien, which is 
some distance soath of Orleans, instead of being 
at the head of his army, and in the front of the 
fighting, where he should have been. His lazy 
and cowardly favorites told him that it was a 
long way to Rheims, and on the road there were 
several towns with strong walls, and castles full 
of Englishmen and Burgundians, who would not 
let him pass. 

54 



THE DAUPHIN IS CROWNED 55 

Joan answered that she knew this very well, 
and cared nothing about it : all the towns and 
castles would yield and open their gates. So she 
left the Dauphin to do as he pleased, and went 
away with her company into the country. The 
Dauphin had no money to pay his troops, but 
men-at-arms came in, himdreds of them, saying 
that they would fight for the love of the Maid 
and of chivalry. No doubt they would have been 
very glad to crown her^ in place of the stupid 
Dauphin, but the French law did not allow it ; and 
Joan wanted nothing for herself, only to make 
France free, and go back to her mother, as she said. 
However, the Dauphin, who was grateful in his 
lazy way, made her and her brothers, Peter and 
John, nobles, and gave her a coat-of-arms, a 
Bword supporting the Crown, with the Lilies of 
France on each side, and changed their name to 
du Lys. But Joan never used her coat-of-arms, 
but bore a Dove, silver, on a blue shield. Her 
brothers were with her, and seem to have fought 
very well, though in most ways they were quite 
ordinary yoimg men. 

When Joan went away, the Dauphin made up 
his mind at last to march to Rheims, going first 
to Troyes, a strong town on the road. All the 
castles and fortresses on the way, instead of re- 
sisting him, submitted to him, as Joan had said 
that they would. At Troyes, where he came on 
8th July, the English garrison, and the people 
of the town who were on the English and Bur- 



56 JOAN OF ARC 

gundian side, wanted to oppose him. They 
fought on the 8th and 9th of July. The Dau- 
phin's advisers did not want to fight, the brave 
Dunois tells us, but Joan said, " Gentle Dauphin, 
bid your army besiege the town, and do not hold 
these long councils, for in three days I will bring 
you into the town." Then down she went to the " 
great ditch or fosse round the town, and worked , 
harder, says Dunois, than two or three of thej 
most famous knights could have done. The peo- 
ple of Troyes then yielded to Joan, and they had 
a great feast in the city, which they needed, for 
the army had been living on soup made from the 
beans in the fields. 

Then they went on to Rheims, and the Arch- 
bishop, and all the people came out to meet them, 
with shouts of joy. On the 17th July the Dau- 
phin, with Joan and all his nobles, went to the 
Cathedral, and there he was crowned and 
anointed and made King in earnest, Joan stand- 
ing beside him with her banner in her hand. 
This was her happiest day, perhaps, and the last 
of her great days. She had done so much ! In 
the beginning of May there was every chance 
that the English would take Orleans, and sweep 
across the Loire, and drive the Dauphin into 
Spain, or across the sea to Scotland, and France 
would have been under the English for who 
knows how long. But in two months Joan had 
driven the English behind the walls of Paris, 
and her Dauphin was King indeed. 



THE DAUPHIN IS CROWNED 57 

Tien the Maid knelt at the King's feet and 
wept for joy, in the great Cathedral, among the 
splendid nobles, and the lights, and the bright 
colored coats-of arms, and the sweet smoke of 
incense. 

*' Gentle King," she said, calling him " King " 
for the first time, "now is the will of God ful- 
filled ! " and the knights themselves wept for 

joy- 
Somewhere in the crowd was an elderly coun- 
tryman in his best clothes, Joan's father, whom 
now she saw for the first time since she left her 
village, and for the last time in her life. The 
King asked her to choose a gift and reward, and 
she asked that the people of her village, Dom- 
remy, should be free from paying taxes, and they 
were made free, and never paid taxes again, for 
three hundred years. On the book of the ac- 
counts of money paid by every town and village 
of France is written, after the names of Domremy 
and the village nearest it, Greux, 

Nothing. For the saJce of the Maid, 

The paper in which the King ordered that 
they should pay nothing may still be seen, dated 
the last of July 1429. 

How glad the people at Domremy must have 
beeo when Joan's father came home with the 
good news ! 

This was the last glad day of the Maid. 



58 JOAN OF ARC 

As she i-ode to Rheims, some people from 
Domremy met her and asked her if she was 
afraid of nothing. 

"Of nothing but treachery," she said, and, 
from this day, she me.t treachery among the 
King's advisers, who held long councils, and did 
not fight. 

As she rode from Rheims towards Paris, the 
people shouted roimd her, and she said that 
they were kind people, and she would like to be 
buried in their cathedral — she, who was never 
to be buried in the earth. 

"Joan," said the Archbishop, "in what place 
do you expect to die ? " 

" Where God pleases, for of that hour and that 
place I know nothing more than you do. But 
would to God that now I might take off my ar- 
mor, and go home to my father and mother," for, 
as she had seen her father, she was longing for 
her mother more than ever. 

After this, the people about the King, and the 
King himself, did not obey Joan and all went 
wrong. 



CHAPTER XI 

HOW THE MAID WAS BETRAYED AT PARIS 

The Frencli should have followed the Maid 
straight to Paris, as she bade them do. But they 
went here and went there, and one day their 
army and that of the Duke of Bedford met, but 
did not fight ; and another day there were skir- 
mishes between the English and the Scots, " who 
fought very bravely," says the Burgundian 
knight, Enguerrand de Monstrelet, who wrote a 
history of those times. The strong town of 
Compiegne, which had often been taken and re- " 
taken, yielded to Joan's army, and the King 
stayed there, doing nothing, which was what he 
liked, and the Duke of Burgundy gave him ex- 
cuses for loitering by sending ambasssadors, and 
pretending that he would give up Paris, for at 
this time there was no English garrison there. 
The poor people of the town were on the side of 
Joan and the King, and now, when the English 
were out of the great city, was the time to take 
it. But the King kept hoping to make peace 
with the Duke of Burgundy, so Joan, with her 
friend the Duke of Alencon, went to Saint Denis, 
quite close to Paris, where the Kings of France 
used to be buried : Saint Denis was the Saint of 

59 



60 JOAN OF ARC 

France, as Saint George was the Saint of Eng- 
land, and Saint Andrew of Scotland. There 
fought the Duke and the Maid, but the King 
came on very slowly, while Joan was in the front 
of battle every day, at one gate of Paris or 
another. At last, by often going to him, and 
urging him to come, Alencon brought the King 
to Saint Denis, but not before a strong new Eng- 
lish army had arrived in the town, of which the 
walls and towers were very high and thick. 

Then Joan led on her men and the Duke's, 
with her banner in her hand, and cried them on 
to break down a gate called the Porte St. 
Honore. 

Percival de Cagny, who rode under the 
standard of Alencon, was in the battle, and he 
says, " The fight was long and fierce, and it was 
wonderful to hear the noise of guns and culverins 
from the walls, and to see the arrows fly like 
clouds. Few of those who went down into the 
dry ditch with the Maid were hurt, though many 
others were wounded with arrows and stone 
cannon balls, but, by God's grace and the Maid's 
favor, there were none but could return without 
help. We fought from noon till darkness began. 
After the sun set, the Maid was wounded by a 
bolt from a cross-bow in the thigh, but she only 
shouted louder to * come on and the place was 
ours.' But when it was dark and all were weary, 
men came from the King and brought her up 
out of the ditch against her will." 



BETRAYED 61 

Next day the Maid rose early, and went to the 
Duke of Alen9on, who never failed her The 
trumpets blew, and a new ally came, the Baron 
de Montmorency, with sixty gentlemen and their 
men-at-arms, and they were riding to attack 
Paris again when the King sent messengers to 
forbid them to do as their hearts desired. So 
they had to go to see him at Saint Denis. But 
the Duke of Alen9on was having a bridge of 
wood thrown across the river Seine, at a new 
place, and they meant to cross by that bridge 
next day, and attack Paris again. 

Shameful to say, the King had that bridge 
taken to pieces during the night, and when 
Joan and the Duke led their men there next day, 
they found only the river, which they could not 
ford. So the King of France saved Paris from 
d'Alen9on and the Maid. 

Richard I. of England would have battered 
down the Paris gate with his own battle-axe ; 
Henry V. or James IV. of Scotland, or Prince 
Charlie, would have been foremost in the fight ; 
but this King of France, Charles VII., unworthy 
of his country and his ancestors, sneaked off to 
his pretty town of Gien, on the Loire. 

" And thus was the will of the Maid broken, 
and the army of the King,'' says Percival de 
Cagny. 

The Duke of Alencon kept his men together, 
and told the King that, if he would let the Maid 
ride with him, they would march into Normandy, 



62 JOAN OF ARC 

and attack the English where they were strongest. 
But the King would not hear of it, and the 
Maid, with almost a broken heart, hung up her 
armor at the altar of Saint Denis, in his 
Cathedral. Half of her year was spent, and the 
King made her stay with him in the towns on 
the Loire, when he might have been in Paris, 
his capital, if he had only trusted Joan. 

In the meantime the English retook some of 
the French towns that Joan had given to the 
King, and seized her sacred armor in the Church 
of Saint Denis, and punished and plundered the 
people, who were worse off than before, while 
the Maid was only allowed now and then to 
attack the English, and defea*^ them in the old 
way. 




CHAPTER XII 

HOW THE MAID TOOK CERTAIN TOWNS 

The wise King had arranged with the Duke of 
Burgundy that they two should be at peace till 
Easter, 1430 ; while he might fight the Enghsh 
as much as he hked, which was, not at all. 

Now the English let the Duke of Burgundy 
be Governor of Paris. It was always Pans that 
the Maid wished to take for her King, as it was 
the greatest city and the capital of France. But 
the King said she must not attack Paris, for it 
was now under the Duke of Burgundy, not under 
the English. All this was mere pretence, to 
avoid fighting. Joan's aim was to turn the 
English and their child King, Henry VI., out of 
her country ; and the English were not likely to 
go out till they were driven out. 

The English still held towns on the river 
Loire, such as St. Pierre-le-Moustier and La 
Charite. Joan went to Bourges and gathered an 
army, with a gentleman named d'Elbret to help 
her, and besieged the town of St. Pierre-le- 
Moustier. When they had battered the walls 
for some time with their guns, and made a 
breach, the French tried to rush through it ; but 
the English were too strong and too many, and 



64 JOAN OF ARC 

drove them out. At this time Joan's Master of 
the Household, d'Aulon, who had been with her 
at Orleans, was wounded in the heel by an 
arrow, and he could not walk without crutches. 
He saw that while the rest of the French had 
retired out of shot from the breach, Joan was 
there almost alone with a very small company. 
D'Aulon therefore got a horse, and rode to her 
to ask her to come out of danger. ** What are 
you doing here alone ? " he asked her. She took 
off her helmet and said, " I am not alone ; here I 
have with me fifty thousand of my own" (by 
which she seems to have meant an invisible army 
of Angels) ; " and I will not leave this place till 
I take the town." D'Aulon told her that she had 
but four or five men with her, to which she only 
answered by bidding him make her army bring 
faggots of wood to fill up the ditch with, that 
they might cross to the town. Then she shouted 
in a loud voice — 

"Bring up faggots, all of you!" and they 
obeyed, filled up the ditch, attacked the breach 
in the wall again, rushed through, beat the Eng- 
lish, and took the town. 

This was just like what Joan had done when 
her army was on the point of retreating from the 
attack on Les Tourelles, at Orleans. "One 
charge more " was what she called for, and her 
men were inspired with courage, while the Eng- 
lish were terrified by their refusal to be beaten. 
This was the last time that Joan led the French 



BESIEGES TOWNS 




Joan would not leave till she took the town. — Page 64 



BESIEGES TOWNS 65 

to such a victory. She besieged another town, 
La Charite, which was held by Burgundians, 
but the King did not send food enough for her 
men, and she had to go away unsuccessful. 

About this time she was troubled by a woman 
called Catherine of La Rochelle, a married 
woman, who declared that a lovely lady came to 
her at night, dressed all in cloth of gold, and 
told her where treasures of money were hidden, 
which were much needed for the wars. Joan 
said that she must see this wonderful lady before 
she could believe in her, and she sat up all night 
with Catherine ; but the lady never came. Joan 
told Catherine to go back to her husband and 
her children, and mind her own affairs. There 
were several people who went about saying that 
they had visions ; but they were of no use, for, 
visions or none, they had not Joan's courage and 
wisdom. It is true that Catherine might have 
said to Joan, "You can't see my golden lady, but 
I can't see your Saints, nor hear your Voices. 
The difference was that Joan's Saints and Voices 
had enabled her to do a great many wonderful 
things, while Catherine's golden lady never led 
to the finding of treasures or anything else that 
was of any use. 



CHAPTER Xlir 

HOW THE VOICES PROPHESIED EVIL 

The end of the year of the Maid was at hand. 
She had often said that she would last but a 
year, or little more, counting from May 1429. 

Perhaps you remember that the King had 
made a truce with the Burgundians — a useless 
truce, for the Burgundians went on fighting, not 
under their own flag, but under the Leopards of 
England. The King, as usual, was loitering 
about, doing nothing. Joan heard, in spring 
1430, that three or four hundred English were 
crossing the Isle of France, which is not a real 
island, but a district of that name. She was 
then at Lagny, on the river Marne, not far from 
Paris. So she rode out from Lagny to meet 
them, with a gentleman whom the French called 
"•Quenede." Can you guess what " Quenede " 
means ? He was Sir Hugh Kennedy, of the great 
Kennedy clan in Galloway and Ayrshire. He 
had fought at the Battle of the Herrings and at 
Orleans, and he made a good deal of money in 
France, so that, when he went back to Scotland, 
he was called " Hugh come wV the Penny." 

When Joan, with her French and Scots, came 
in sight of the enemy, the English drew them- 

66 



EVIL PROPHESIED 67 

selves up on foot, along the side of a liedge, and 
Joan and the rest charged them, some on foot, 
some on horse, and there was hard fighting, for 
the numbers were about equal. But at last all 
the English were killed or taken prisoners. There 
was also taken a robber knight, Franquet d'Arras, 
who was tried for his crimes and put to death, 
and the English party among the French thought 
it very wicked in Joan to allow the rogue to be 
punished. 

In Easter Week Joan was at Melun one day, 
examining the ditch round the walls to see that 
it was in good order. Then suddenly the Voices 
of St. Catherine and St. Margaret spoke to her, 
and said that she should be taken prisoner 
before Midsummer day, " and thus it needs must 
be," and that she was to be resigned to this, 
and God would help her. 

Often after this terrible day the Voices made 
the same prophecy, but they would never tell her 
the time and the hour. She prayed that she 
might die in that hour, for the English had often 
threatened her that they would burn her as a 
witch, if they caught her. Often she asked the 
Voices to warn her of the hour of her capture, 
for she would not have gone into battle on that 
day. But they would not tell her, and, after 
that, she did what the Captains of her party 
thought best, and it seems that, as to where or 
when she was to fight, she had no advice from 
the Voices. But she fought on as bravely as 



68 JOAN OF ARC 

ever, and this was the bravest thing that ever 
v^as done by any one. For it was not as if the 
Voices had said that she should be killed in 
battle, of which she had no fear. But they said 
she was to be captured, and she knew that meant 
she was to be burned alive. 

Nobody but Joan would have gone on risking 
herseK every day, not to danger of war, which is 
the duty of every soldier, but to the death by 
fire. If any one says that the Voices were only 
her fancy, and her fear taking a fanciful shape, 
we must reply that, whatever they really were, 
she believed all that they said, and thought that 
they were the voices of her sisters, the Saints. 
Thus the end of Joan was the most glorious 
thing in her glorious life, for many could be 
brave enough when the Saints prophesied victory 
but only she could give her body to burned for 
her country. 




CHAPTER XIV 

HOW THE MAID WAS TAKEN 

We have lieard how the town of Compiegne 
came over to Joan and the King, after the 
coronation at Rheims. The city had often been 
taken and retaken, and held by both sides. But 
now they made np their minds that, come what 
might, they would be true to France, and now, 
in May, the English and Burgundians besieged 
Compiegne with a very large army. 

Joan, who was at Lagny, heard of this, and 
she made up her mind to help the good and 
loyal town, or perish with it. She first tried to 
cut the roads that the Duke of Burgundy used 
for his soldiers and supplies of food, but she 
failed to take Soissons and Pont TEveque, and 
so shut the Duke off from his bridges over the 
rivers. So she rode into Compiegne under cloud 
of night, with her brother Pierre, and two or 
three hundred men. This was before dawn, on 
May 23. 

The town of Compiegne is on the left bank of 
the river Oise. Behind the town was a forest, 
through which Joan rode, and got into the town, 
to the great joy of the people. From Compiegne 
to the right bank of the Oise, where the English 

69 



JOAN OF ARC 

and Burgundians had their camps, there was a 
long bridge, fortified, that led into a great level 
meadow, about a mile broad. In wet weather 
the meadow was often under- water from the 
flooded river, so a causeway, or raised road, was 
built across it, high and dry. At the end of the 
causeway, farthest from Compiegne, was the 
village of Margny, with the steeple of its church, 
and here a part of the Burgundian army was 
encamped. Two miles and a half farther on was 
the village of Clairoix, where lay another part of 
the Burgundian force. About a mile and a half 
to the left of the causeway was the village of 
Venette, which was held by the English, and 
about three miles off, was Coudun, where the 
Duke of Burgundy himself had his quarters. 
There were very large forces in front, and on the 
side, of the only road by which Joan could get 
at them, with her own men, only three hundred, 
probably, and any of the townspeople who liked 
to follow her on foot, with clubs and scythes, and 
such weapons. 

Thus it was really a very rash thing of Joan 
to lead so few men, by such a narrow road, to 
attack the nearest Burgundians, those at Margny, 
at the end of the causeway. The other Bur- 
gundians, farther off, and the English from 
Venette, quite near, and on Joan's left flank, 
would certainly come up to attack her, and help 
their friends at Margny. She would be sur- 
rounded on all sides and cut off, for the garrison 



HOW SHE WAS TAKEN 



71 




Joan is surrounded and taken. — Page 73 



72 JOAN OF ARC 

of Compiegne stayed in the town, tinder their 
general, de Flavy, who was a great ruffian, but a 
brave man, and loyal to France. 

Why Joan, about five o'clock in the evening 
of May 23, rode out with her little force, crossed 
the bridge, galloped down the causeway, and 
rod'o through and through the Burgundians at 
JIargny, we do not know. Her Voices seem to 
have ceased to give her advice, only saying that 
she would certainly be captured. Perhaps she 
only meant to take Margny ; though it is not 
easy to understand how she expected to hold it, 
when the whole Burgundian and English armies 
came up to recover it, as they would certainly 
do. If she aimed at more, her charge was very 
brave, but very ill-judged. Joan said that her 
Voices did not tell her to make her desperate 
sally ; it was her own idea. 

Nearly seventy years afterwards, two very old 
men said that, when they were young at 
Compiegne, they heard Joan tell a crowd of 
children, before she rode out, that "I am be- 
trayed, and soon will be delivered to death. Pray 
God for me, for I shall never again be able to 
help France and the King." One of the men 
was ninety-eight, so he would be quite twenty- 
eight when he heard Joan say this ; if he really 
did hear her. But, long before men are ninety- 
eight, or even eighty-six, like the other man, 
they are apt to remember things that never hap- 
pened. But Joan may have told children, of 



HOW SHE WAS TAKEN 73 

whom she was very fond, that she knew she was 
soon to be taken. 

Her enemies declared that she said she would 
take the Duke of Burgundy himself, but as he 
was several miles away, in the middle of a large 
army, while she had only three hundred of her 
own men, this cannot be true. Probably she only 
meant to break up the Burgundians at Margny, 
and show that she was there, to encourage the 
people at Compiegne. 

Her own account is that she charged the 
Burgundians at Margny, the nearest village, and 
drove them twice back to Clairoix, where they 
were reinforced by the great Burgundian army 
there, and thrust her back to the middle of the 
causeway, where she turned again, charged them, 
and made them retreat. But then the English 
came up from Venette, on her flank, and came 
between her and the bridge of Compiegne, and 
she leaped her horse off the raised causeway into 
the meadow, where she was surrounded, and 
pulled off her horse and taken, though she would 
not surrender. No doubt she hoped that, as she 
refused to surrender, she would be killed on the 
spot. When they cried to her to yield she said, 
*' I have given my faith to another than you, and 
I will keep my oath to Him," meaning Our 
Lord. 

But she was too valuable to be killed. The 
captors might either get a great ransom, a king's 
ransom, or sell her to the English to burn. The 



74 JOAN OF ARC 

French would not pay the ransom, and Jean de 
Luxembourg, who got possession of her, sold her 
to the English. The Burgundian historian, who 
was with the Duke, and did not see the battle, 
says, " the English feared not any captain, nor, 
any chief in war, as they feared the Maid." "She 
had done great deeds, passing the nature of 
woman." Says another Burgundian writer: 
" She remained in the rear of her men as their 
captain, and the bravest of all, there, where 
fortune granted it, for the end of her glory, and 
for that last time of her bearing arms." 

But, indeed, her glory never ceased, for in her 
long, cruel imprisonment and martyrdom, she 
showed more courage than any man-at-arms can 
display, where blows are given and taken. 




CHAPTER XV 

THE CAPTIVITY OF THE MAID 

"We might -suppose that there was not a rich man 
in France, or even a poor man, who would not 
have given what he could, much or little, to help 
to pay the ransom of the Maid. Jean de Luxem- 
bourg only wanted the money, and, as she was a 
prisoner of was, she might expect to be ransomed 
like other prisoners. It was the more needful to 
get the money and buy her freedom, as the 
priests of the University of Paris, who were on 
the English side, at once wrote to Jean de Lux- 
embourg ( July 14 ) , and asked him to give Joan 
up to the Inquisition, to be tried by the laws of 
the Inquisition for the crimes of witchcraft, 
idolatry, and wrong doctrines about religion. 

The Inquisitor was the head of a kind of 
religious Court, which tried people for not hold- 
ing the right belief, or for witchcraft, or other 
religious offences. The rules of the Court, and 
the way of managing the trials, were what we 
think very unfair. But they were not more 
unfair than the method used in Scotland after 
the Reformation. There old women were 
tortured till they confessed that they were 
witches, and then were burnt alive, sometimes 

75 



76 JOAN OF ARC 

seven or eight of them at once, for crimes which 
nobody could possibly commit. 

That went on in Scotland till the country was 
united to England, at the beginning of the 
eighteenth century, and the laws against witch- 
craft were not abolished till 1736. Many of the 
Presbyterian ministers, who were active in hunt- 
ing for witches and having them put to horrid 
tortures, were very angry that the withcraft laws 
were abolished. The Inquisition was better than 
the ministers and magistrates in one way : if a 
witch confessed, and promised not to do it again, 
she was not put to death, but kept in prison. In 
Scotland the people accused of witchcraft had 
not even this chance, which did not help Joan, 
as we shall see. 

All this is told here, to show that the French 
were not more stupid and cruel four hundred 
years ago, than were the Scotch, two hundred 
years ago. But it was a fearful thing to fall 
into the hands of the Inquisition, and therefore 
the French King and his subjects should have 
paid Joan's ransom at once, or rescue her by 
force of arms. But not a coin was paid, and not 
a sword was drawn to ransom or to rescue her. 
The people who advised the King had never 
liked her, and now the King left her to her fate. 

,0f course Joan was not a witch, and was a 
most religious girl, but she did not deny that 
she had talked with spirits, the spirits of the 
Saints ; and her judges, who hated her, could 



CAPTIVITY 77 

say, and did say, that these spirits were devils, 
in disguise, and that therefore she was a witch. 
She always had known that they would do this, if 
they got the chance. 

Jean de Luxembourg did not hand Joan over 
to the priests at once : probably he was waiting 
to see if he could not get a better price from her 
French friends than from her English enemies. 
The Bishop of Beauvais was Joan's worst enemy : 
his odious name was Pierre Cauchon, and in 
July he kept pressing the Duke of Burgundy, 
then still besiegiug Compi^ne, to make Jean 
give up the Maid. Jean kept the Maid in a 
castle called Beaulieu till August, and then sent 
her to another castle, Beaurevoir, near Cambrai, 
far to the north, where it would be more difficult 
for her friends like Dunois and d'Alencon to 
come and rescue her by force, which we do not 
hear that they tried to do, though perhaps they 
did. The brave Xaintrailles was doing a thing 
that Joan longed for even more than for her 
freedom. She was taken in fighting to help the 
town of Compiegne, of which she was very fond, 
and her great grief at Beaulieu and Beaurevoir 
was that Compiegne was likely to be taken by 
the Burgundians and English, who threatened 
to put the people to death. All this while 
Xaintrailles was preparing a small army to 
deliver Compiegne. 

At Beaurevoir the ladies of the castle were 
kinsfolk of Jean de Luxembourg. They were 



78 JOAN OF ARC 

good women, and very kind to Joan, and they 
knelt to Jean, weeping, and asking him to givo 
her back to her friends. But he wanted his 
money, like the men who sold Sir William 
Wallace to the English, and the great Montrose 
to the preachers and Parliament. 

So Jean sold the Maid to the English. Joan 
knew this, and knew what she had to expect. 
She was allowed to take the air on the flat roof 
of the great tower at Beaurevoir, which was 60 
feet high. She was not thinking so much of 
herself as of Compiegne. If she could escape 
she would try to make her way to Compiegne, 
and help the people to fight for their liberty and 
their lives. But how could she escape ? She 
hoped that, if she leaped from the top of the 
tower, her Saints would bear her up in their 
arms, and not let her be hurt by the fall. So she 
asked them if she might leap down, but St. 
Catherine said. No ; she must not leap. God 
would help her and the people of Compiegne. 

But Joan would not listen, this time, to the 
Voice. She said that, if the leap was wrong, she 
would rather trust her soul to the mercy of God, 
than her body to the English. And she must go 
to Compidgne, for she heard that, when the town 
was taken, all the people, old and young, were 
to be put to the sword. 

Then she leaped, and there she lay. She was 
not hurt, not a bone of her was broken, which is 
an extraordinary thing, but she could not move a 



CAPTIVITY 



79 




Joan on the roof of the tower at Beaurevoir — Pag-e 78 



80 JOAN OF ARC 

limb. The people of tlie castle came and took 
her back to her prison room. She did not know 
what had happened, and for three days she ate 
nothing. Then her memory came back to her 
and to her sorrows. Why was she not allowed 
to die ! St. Catherine told her that she had 
sinned, and must confess, and ask the Divine 
mercy. But she was to go through with her 
appointed task. "Take no care for thy torment,'' 
said the Voice ; " thence shalt thou come into 
Paradise." Moreover, St. Catherine promised 
that Compiegne should be rescued before Martin- 
mas. That was the last good news, and the 
last happy thing that came to Joan in the days 
of her life ; for, just before Martinmas, her friend, 
Pothon de Xaintrailles, rode with his men-at- 
arms through the forest of Compiegne, whilst 
others of the French attacked the English and 
Burgundians on the farther side of the Oise, and 
so the Saint kept her promise, and Compiegne 
was saved. 



CHAPTER XVI 

THE TRIAL OF THE MAID 

As Joan was a woman, and a prisoner of the 
Church, when the English had handed her over 
to the priests, she ought to have been kept in 
gentle prison, and with only women about her. 
But the English were very cruel. They had a 
kind of cage made, called a huche, and put in a 
strong room in the Castle of Rouen. In this 
cage they kept Joan, with chains on her legs, 
which were fastened to a strong post or beam of 
the bed. Five common soldiers kept watch in 
the room, day and night ; the eyes of the men 
were always on the most modest of girls. We 
see now much they feared her. They wished to 
have her proved a witch, and one who dealt with 
devils, to take away the shame of having been 
defeated by a girl, and also to disgrace the 
French King by making the world believe that 
he had been helped by a sorceress and her evil 
spirits. In truth, if you read Renry F/., Part 
I., by Shakespeare, you will see just what the 
English thought about the Maid. Shakespeare, 
of course, did not know the true story of Joan, 
and he makes her say abominable things, which 
not even her enemies brought up against her at 

81 



82 JOAN OF ARC 

her Trial. If Shakespeare wrote the play, he did 
not care a penny for the truth of the story. He 
sends Joan to Bordeaux, where she never was in 
her life, and makes " Fiends " ( that is, her Saints ) 
appear to her, and show that they will help her 
no longer. So she offers her very soul as a 
sacrifice for the sake of France : 

''Then take my soul, my body, soul and all, 
Before that England give the French the foil." 

Later she turns on the English, and says what 
she might have said with truth : 

"I never had to do with wicked spirits: 
But you, that are polluted with your lusts, 
Stained with the guiltless blood of innocents, 
Corrupt and tainted with a thousand vices. 
Because you want the grace that others have, 
You judge it straight a thing impossible 
To compass wonders but by help of devils." 

The English had devils on their own side, the 
cruel priests and Bishop Cauchon, whom they 
had promised to make Archbishop of Rouen. 
But he never got it. 

For three months these examined Joan every 
day, sometimes all shouting at her at once, so 
that she said, 

"Gentlemen, if you please, one at time." 

She had no advocate, who knew the law, to 
help her defend herself. But once, when she 
appealed to the Council of Basle, a Council of 



HER TRIAL 83 

the Church, which was then sitting, they bade 
her be silent, and told the clerk who took down 
everything in writing, in French, not to write 
down her appeal. There is nothing about this in 
the Latin book of the Trial, translated from the 
French, but in the French copy, made in court, 
you see the place where the clerk's pen has 
stopped at the words, "and she appeals" {Et 
requiert^ in French ). He was going to write the 
rest. Now she had a right to appeal, and as the 
clergy at the Council of Basle were of many 
countries, they would not have taken the English 
side, but pronounced Joan innocent. The 
Bishops and clergy of the loyal French party at 
Poitiers, before she went to the war, had declared 
her innocent and a thing of God, after examina- 
tion of her life up till April 1429. Joan often 
asked her judges to send for " the Poitiers book," 
where they would find answers to their questions 
about her early days ; but they vexed her about 
everything, even about the fairy tree, on which 
the children used to hang their garlands. Their 
notion seems to have been that the fairies were 
her helpers, not the Saints, and that the fairies 
were evil spirits. 

Joan had shown that, in war and politics, she 
was wiser than the soldiers and statesmen. She 
went straight at the work to be done — to beat 
the Englieh, and to keep attacking them before 
they got back their confidence. At her Trial she 
showed that she p^as far wiser than the learned 



84 JOAN OF ARC 

priests. They tried to prove that she was helped 
by the fairies. She said that she did not believe 
there were any fairies ; and though I woidd not 
say that there are none^ there certainly are not 
so many, or so busy and powerful, as the priests 
supposed. They kept asking her about the 
prophecies of Merlin the Wizard : she thought 
nothing of Merlin the Wizard. 

She vowed to speak truth in answer to 
questions, but she would not answer questions 
about her Saints and Voices, except ^hen they 
gave her permission. The judges troubled her 
most about the secret of the King, and what she 
told him about that, before she went to the wars. 
You remember that the King had secretly prayed 
to know whether he really was the son of the late 
King or not, and that Joan told him of his 
prayer, and told him that he was the son of the 
King, and had the right to be King himself. 
But she would tell the Judges nothing about all 
this matter. If she had, the English woidd have 
cried everywhere, "You see he is not certain 
himself that he is what he pretends to be. Our 
King of England is the only King of France." 

Joan would not betray her King*s doubts. She 
never would tell what happened. At last sbe 
told a simple parable : an Angel came with a rich 
crown for the King. But, later, she explained 
that by the Angel she meant herself, and that by 
the Crown, she meant her having him crowned 
at Rheims. They never could get the King'e 



HER TRIAL 85 

secret out of her. At last they said they would 
put her to the torture. They took her to a horrible 
vault, full of abominable instruments for pinch- 
ing, and tearing, and roasting, and screwing the 
bodies of men. There stood the excutioner, with 
his arms bare, and his fire lit, and all his pincers, 
and ropes, and pulleys ready. 

"Now will you tell us?*' they said. Brave 
men had turned faint with terror in that vault, 
and had said anything that they were asked to 
say, rather than face the pain. There was a 
Marshal of France, Gilles de Rais, a nobleman 
who fought beside Joan at Orleans, at Les 
ToureUes, at Jargeau, at Pathay, and at Paris, 
and who carried the sacred vessel which the 
Angel brought, long ago, with holy oil, at the 
King's coronation. Later this man was accused 
by the Inquisition of the most horrible crimes. 
Among other things, he was said to have 
sacrificed children to the devil, and to have 
killed hundreds of little boys for his own 
amusement. But hundreds of little boys were not 
proved missing, and none of their remains were 
ever found. Gilles de Rais denied these horrible 
charges ; he said he was innocent, and, for all 
that we know, he was. But they took him to 
the torture vault, and showed him the engines of 
torment, and he confessed everything, so that he 
might be put to death without torture, which 
was done. 

Joan did not fear and turn faint. She said. 



86 JOAN OF ARC 

" Torture me if yon please. Tear my body to 
pieces. Whatever I say in my pains will not be 
true, and as soon as I am released I will deny 
that it was true. Now, go on ! " Many priests 
wished to go on, but more, even of these cruel 
enemies, said, " No ! " they would not torture 
the girl. 

" What a brave lass. Pity she is not English !'* 
one of the English lords said, when he saw Joan 
standing up against the crowd of priests and 
lawyers. 

Remember that, for six weeks during Lent, 
Joan took no food all day. There she stood, 
starving, and answering everybody, always 
bravely, always courteously, always wisely, and 
sometimes even merrily. They kept asking her 
the same questions on different days, to try to 
make her vary in her answers. All the answers 
were written down. Once they said she had 
answered differently before, and, when the book 
was examined, it proved that there was some 
mistake in the thing, and that Joan was in the 
right. She was much pleased, and said to the 
clerk, " If you make mistakes again, I will pull 
your ears.'* 

They troubled her very much about wearing 
boy's dress. She said that, when among men in 
war, it was better and more proper. She was 
still among men, with soldiers in her room, day 
and night, which was quite unlawful ; she should 
have had only women about her. She would not 



HER TRIAL 87 

put on women's dress while she was among men, 
and was quite in the right. 

She could hear her Voices in Court, but not 
clearly on accoant of the noise. Once, I suppose, 
she heard them, for she suddenly said, in the 
middle of an answer to a question about the 
letters which were written for her when she was 
in the wars : 

"Before seven years are passed the English 
will lose a greater stake than they have lost at 
Orleans ; they will lose everything in France." 

Before the seven years were out they lost Paris, 
a much greater stake than Orleans, as Paris was 
the chief town and the largest. They went on 
losing till they lost everything in France, even 
all that they had held for hundreds of years. 

The Judges insisted that she should submit to 
the Church. Joan asked nothing better. " Take 
me to the Pope, and I will answer him, for I 
know and believe that we should obey our Holy 
Father, the Pope, who is in Rome." Or she 
would answer the Council of the whole Church 
at Basle, but, as I said, the Bishop Cauchon 
stopped the clerk when he was writing down the 
words. The Judges said " We are the Church ; 
answer us and obey us." But, of course, they 
were not the Church ; they were only a set of 
disloyal French priests who sided against their 
own country, and helped the English. 



^ 



CHAPTER XVn 

HOW THE PRIESTS BETRAYED THE MAID 

At last, on May 24, 1431, they determined to force 
her to acknowledge herself in the wrong, and to 
deny her Saints. On that day they took her to 
the graveyard of the Church of St. Ouen. Two 
platforms had been built; on one stood the 
wretched Cauchon with his gang; Joan was 
placed on the other. There was also a stake with 
faggots, for burning Joan. They had ready two 
written papers : on one it was written that Joan 
would submit to them, and wear woman's dress. 
On the other was a long statement that her 
Saints were evil spirits, and that she had done 
all sorts of wrong things. She was told that if 
she would sign the .short paper, and wear 
woman's dress, she would be put in gentle prison 
with women about her instead of English soldiers. 
Seeing the fire ready, Joan repeated the short 
form of words, and made her mark, smiling, on 
the piece of paper that they gave her, but — it 
was the paper with the long speech, accusing 
herseK of crimes and denying her Saints. 

This is what we are told ; but, later, she 
showed that she thought she had denied her 
Saints, so it is not easy to be quite sure of what 

88 



THE PRIESTS BETRAY HER 89 

happened. It is certain that Cauchon broke his 
word. She was not taken away from her cruel 
prison and English soldiers, as was promised. 
She was given woman's dress ; but, as they were 
determined to make her " relapse," that is, return 
to the sin of wearing man's dress, for then they 
could bum her, they put her boy's dress in her 
room, and so acted that she was obliged to put 
it on. It is a horrid story, not fit to be told, of 
cruelty and falseness. 

" Now we have her ! " said Cauchon to an 
Englishman. 

They went to her, and asked her if the Voices 
had come to her again ? 

"Yes!" 

"What did they say?" 

" St. Catherine and St. Margaret told me that 
I had done very wrong, when I said what I did 
to save my life, and that I was damning myself 
to save my life." 

" Then you believe that the Voices were the 
voices of the Saints." 

" Yes, I believe that, and that the Voices come 
from God ; " and she said that she did not mean 
ever to have denied it. 

On the day of her burning, the Bishop and 
the rest went to Joan again, and wrote out a 
statement that she left it to the Church to say 
whether her Voices were good or bad. The 
church has decided that they were good, and has 
given Joan the title of " Venerable," which is 



90 JOAN OF ARC 

the first step towards proclaiming her to be one 
of the Saints. Whatever the Voices were, she 
said they were real, not fancied things. 

But this paper does not count, for the clerk 
who took all the notes refused to go with the 
Bishop to see Joan, that time, saying that it was 
no part of the law, and that they went as private 
men, not as Judges, and he had courage not to 
sign the paper. He was an honest man and 
thought Joan a good girl, unlawfully treated, and 
was very sorry for her. " He never wept so 
much for any sorrow in all his life, and for a 
month he could not be quiet for sorrow : and he 
bought a book of prayers and prayed for the 
soul of the Maid." 

This honest man's name was Gilbert Manchon. 




HER END 



91 




They bum Joan of Arc in the market-place of Rouen.— Page 92 



CHAPTER XVm 

THE END OF THE MAID 

They burned her cruelly to death in the market- 
place of Rouen, with eight hundred soldiers 
round the stake, lest any should attempt to save 
her. They had put a false accusation on a paper 
cap, and set it on her head : it was written that 
she was *' Heretic, Relapsed, Apostate, Idola- 
tress." This was her reward for the bravest and 
best life that was ever lived. 

She came to her own and her own received 

her not 

There was with her a priest who pitied her, not 
one of her Judges — Brother Isambert de la 
Pierre, of the order of St. Augustine. Joan 
asked him to bring her a cross, and to hold it up 
before her eyes while she was burning. " Saith 
moreover that while she was in the fire she 
ceased never to caU loudly on the Holy Name of 
Jesus; always, too, imploring ceaselessly the 
help of the Saints in Paradise; and more, when 
the end was now come, she bowed her head, and 
gave up her spirit, calling on the name of Jesus." 

The Saints had said to her, long before : " Bear 
your torment lightly : thence shall you come mto 
the kingdom of Paradise." 

92 



HER END ' 93 

So died Joan the Maid. 

It is said by some who were present, that even 
the English Cardinal, Beaufort, wept when he 
saw the Maid die : " crocodiles' tears ! " One 
of the secretaries of Henry VI. ( who himself was 
only a little boy) said, "We are all lost. We 
have burned a Saint ! " 

They were all lost. The curse of their cruelty 
did not depart from them. Driven by the French 
and Scots from province to province, and from 
town to town, the English returned home, tore 
and rent each other ; murdering their princes 
and nobles on the scaffold, and slaying them as 
prisoners of war on the field ; and stabbing and 
smothering them in chambers of the Tower; 
York and Lancaster devouring each other ; the 
mad Henry VI. was driven from home to wander 
by the waves at St. Andrews, before he wandered 
back to England and the dagger stroke — these 
things were the reward the English won, after 
they had burned a Saint. They ate the bread 
and drank the cup of their own greed and 
cruelty all through the Wars of the Roses. They 
brought shame upon their name which Time can 
never wash away ; they did the DeviFs work, and 
took the DeviVs wages. Soon Henry VIH. was 
butchering his wives and burning Catholics and 
Protestants, now one, now the other, as the 
humor seized him. 

Joan had said to the Archbishop, at Rheims, 
that she knew not where she would die, or where 



94 JOAN OF ARC 

she would be buried. Her ashes were never laid 
in the earth ; she had no grave. The English, 
that men might forget her, threw her ashes into 
the sea. There remain no relics of Joan of Arc ; 
no portrait, nothing she ever wore, no cup or 
sword or jewel that she ever touched. But she 
is not forgotten ; she never will be forgotten. On 
every Eighth of May, the day when she turned 
the tide of English conquest, a procession in her 
honor goes through the streets of Orleans, the 
city that she saved ; and though the Protestants, 
at the Reformation, destroyed her statue that 
knelt before the Fair Cross on the bridge, she 
has statues in many of the towns in France. She 
was driven from the gate of Paris, but near the 
place where she lay wounded in the ditch, is her 
statue, showing her on horseback, in armor. 




CHAPTER XIX 

THE SECOND TRIAL CF THE MAD) 

The rich and the strong had not paid a franc, or 
drawn a sword to ransom or to rescue Joan. The 
poor had prayed for her, and the written prayers 
which they used may still be seen. Probably 
the others would have been glad to let Joan's 
memory perish, but to do this was not convenient. 
If Joan had been a witch, a heretic, an impostor, 
an apostate, as was declared in her condemnation, 
then the King had won his battles by the help of 
a heretic and a witch. Twenty years after Joan's 
martyrdom, when the King had recovered 
Normandy and Rouen, he thought it time to take 
care of his own character, and to inquire into 
the charges on which she was found guilty. It is 
fair to say that he could not do this properly till 
he was master of Rouen, the place at which she 
was tried. Some of the people concerned were 
asked questions, such as the good clerk, Manchon, 
and Beaupere, one of the judges. He was a man 
of some sense ; he did not think that Joan was 
a witch, but that she was a fanciful girl, who 
thought that she saw Saints and heard Voices, 
when she neither saw nor heard anything. Many 
mad people hear Voices which are also mad ; 

95 



96 JOAN OF ARC 

Joan's Voices were perfectly sane and wise, and 
told her things that she could not have known of 
herself. 

Not much came of this examination, but two 
years later, Joan's mother and brothers prayed 
for a new trial to clear the character of the 
family. It is the most extraordinary thing that, 
up to this year, 1452, Joan's brothers and cousins 
seem to have been living, on the best terms, with 
the woman who pretended to be Joan, and said 
that she had not been burned, but had escaped. 
This was a jolly kind of woman, fond of eating 
and drinking and playing tennis. Why Joan's 
brothers and cousins continued to be friendly 
with her, after the King found her out, because she 
did not know his secret, is the greatest of puzzles, 
for she was a detected impostor, and no money 
could be got from the connection with her. 
Another very amazing thing is that, in 1436, an 
aunt of the Duke of Burgundy, Madame de 
Luxembourg, entertained the impostor, while the 
whole town of Orleans welcomed her, and made 
her presents, and ceased holding a religious 
service on the day of Joan's death, for here, 
they said, she was, quite well and merry ! More- 
over the town's books of accounts, at Orleans, 
show that they paid a pension to Joan's mother 
as " Mother of the Maid," till 1452, when they 
say *' Mother of the late Maid." For now, as 
Joan's family were trying to have her character 
cleared, they admitted that she was dead, burned 



SECOND TRIAL 97 

to death, in 1431, as, of course, she really was. 
There are not many things more curious than 
this story of the False Maid. 

However, at last Joan's family gave up the 
impostor, and, five years later, she was impris- 
oned, and let out again, and that is the last we 
hear of her. The new Trial lingered on, was 
begun, and put off, and begun again in 1455. 
Cauchon was dead by this time ; nothing could 
be done to him. Scores of witnesses came and 
told the stories given at the beginning of 
this book, showing how Joan was the best and 
most religious of girls, and very kind to people 
even more poor than herself, and very industrious 
in knitting and sewing and helping her mother. 
Every one who was still alive, that had known 
her in the wars, came, like d'Alencon, and Dunois, 
and d'Aulon, and her confessor: and many 
others came, and told about Joan in the wars, 
how brave she was and modest, and the stories 
of what she had suffered in prison, and about 
the unfairness of her trial, were repeated. 

The end was that the Court of Inquiry 
declared her trial to have been full of unlaw- 
fulness and cruelty, and they abolished the 
sentence against her, and took off all the shame- 
ful reproaches, and ordered a beautiful cross to 
be erected to her memory in the place where she 
was burned to death. 

So here ends the story of the Life and Death 
of Joan the Maid. 



#* 



McLOUGHLIN'S 
ONE-SYL-LA-BLE BOOKS 

These volumes have been before tne puo/ic for 
many years and are acknowledged by press and 
public to be the best editions in one-syl-la-ble 
that can be put into the hands of the children. 
Illustrated in colors; done in lithography; octavo, 
cloth, stamped in colors. Price 35 cents. 

History of the United States, by Josephine Pollard 

Life of George Washington, 

Robinson Crusoe, " Daniel Defoe 

Swiss Family Robinson, " J. D. Wysz 

Sandford and Merton, " Thomas Day 

Pilgrim's Progress, " John Bunyan 

Lives of the Presidents, " Harry Putnam 

Life of Lincoln, 

Bible Stories, (Selected) 

Other volumes in preparation 
890 Broadway, N. Y. 



THE YOUNG 
READER'S LIBRARY 

This is a series of classics, edited and 
arranged for our young readers. Beauti- 
fully illustrated throughout, with colored 
frontispiece done in lithography. Quarto, 
cloth, stamped in colors. Price, twenty- 
five cents. 

King of the Golden River, by John Ruskin. 

Rip Van Winkle, by Washington Irving. 

Robin Hood, by H. W. Dulcken. 

Robinson Crusoe, by Daniel Defoe. 

The Christmas Tree, 

by Hans Christian Anderson. 

White Cat and Other Stories, 

by Madame D*Aulnoy. 

Other volumes in preparation 



r^ Broadway, N. V. 






McLoughlin's Exlitions of 

Recitation Books 



Something new in the construction of a series of Recita- 
tion Books for young people, edited and arranged by 
Matilda Blair, from the writings of some of the most 
popular authors of prose and verse. Handsomely illus- 
trated, with frontispieces done in lithography. Cloth, 
octavo. 160 pp. Artistically stamped in colors. Price • 
50 cents. , <^ 

WEE PIECES FOR WEE SPEAKERS : 

'* * Wee Pieces for Wee Speakers ' should be popular with 
the mothers and teachers who are called upon to provide 
* pieces ' for the children to speak. All ages and tastes 
are provided for, with a little girls' and a little boys' section, 
a special assortment of Christmas selections, and hundreds 
of verses for older amateur elocutionists. Some very good 
poetry is included." — The Chicago Ruord-Herald. 

THE IDEAL SPEAKER 

" * This volume fills a long felt want for a handy, relia- 
ble speaker for the young people. It contains recitations. 
Just what they are looking for. It will indeed be very help- 
ful to the school boy or girl who so often cannot find a 
suitable piece to recite, but will ever find one if they have 
this book. We gladly commend it and hope it will have 
the large circulation it so richly deserves." — Southern Star, 

THE NONPAREIL READER AND SPEAKER 

** The * Nonpareil Speaker' will be welcomed by parents 
and teachers for the fresh material graded for all ages." 

— Boston Herald, 

" The • Nonpareil Speaker ' is composed of humorous 
verse, dramatic selections, oratory and tableau vivants. 
The book furnishes evidence that the work of compilation 
has been well done." — Pitttburgh Chrenicle-Teiegraph, 

Other Toluraes in preparation 



Broftdwrny, N. T. 



Young Folks' 
Standard Library 

A collection of standard volumes for the youngf 
teader as well as those who have passed the 
juvenile age. Profusely illustrated throughout 
in halftone with colored frontispiece done in lithog- 
raphy. Printed from new plates^ modern type^ 
octave clothe artistically stamped in three colors* 
J 60 pp. Price Thirty -five Cents. 



Andersen's Fairy Tales. 

Grimm's Fairy Tales. 

Aesop's Fables. 

Gulliver's Travels. 

Alice in Wonderland. 

Through the Looking- 
Glass. 

Puss in Boots. 

Red Riding Hood. 

Cinderella. 

Mother Goose Nursery 
Rhymes. 

Jack and the Bean Stalk. 

Tom Thumb. 

Kriss Kringle's Travels. 

Aladdin. 

Christmas Frolics. 

Ali Baba. 

True Stories from His- 
tory. 



World of Adventure. 

Historical Sketches. 

World's Heroes. 

Robinson Crusoe. 

Animal World. 

Christmas Carol. 

Cricket on the Hearth. 

Grandfather's Chair. 

Black Beauty. 

Tales from Shakespeare, 
Part I. 

Tales from Shakespeare, 
Part 2. 

Treasure Island. 

The Rose and the Ring. 

Child's History of Eng- 
land. 

The Little Lame Prince, 

Swiss Family Robinson, 

Old Father Christmas. 



890 Broadway, N. Y. 



The World's 

Classics Retold 

This " Retold " Library is an attempt to bring 
the world's classics to the comprehension of chil- 
dren, not only as a source of literary amusement, 
but as a supplementary aid to larger knowledge. 
The series has been arranged and edited by 
writers well qualified to reach the juvenile mind. 
Other volumes will appear from time to time on 
this list. The books are printed from new plates, 
modem type, and illustrated in tints with colored 
frontispieces done in lithography. Small 1 2mo, 
stamped artistically in three colors. Price 50 cts. 
The volumes are as follows : 

Stories from the Old Testament. 

New Testament. 

Faerie Queene, Spenser. 

v^haucer. 

King Arthur's Knights, from 
Malory's " Morte D'Arthur." 

The Heroes, Charles Kingsley. 

Water Babies, 

Ivanhoe, Sir Walter Scott. 

Rob Roy, Sir Walter Scott. 



890 Broadway, N. Y. 



Young Folks 
Colonial Library 

This series of books will consist of biographical 
stories of the minor characters in the War for 
Independence. They are written in a style ap- 
pealing especially to young people ; but the adult 
will find them authentic as well as interesting 
reading. The stories have been carefully pre- 
pared and deal only in facts, with enough roman- 
tic coloring to give them freshness and interest. 
Our young folks wiU find them a material aid to 
the study of our country's history. The books 
are fully illustrated by artists who are well and 
favorably known. The pictures are in tints with 
frontispieces done in lithography. Price 40 cts. 

The following volumes by Percy K. Fitzhugh : 

The Story of John Paul Jones. 

Ethan Allen, the Green Mountain Boy. 

General Francis Marion, the Bayard of 
the South. 

General Richard Montgomery. 

General Johann De Kalb. 

Anthony Wayne (Mad Anthony). 



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